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Election officials had received and sorted a total of 70,401 ballot packages as of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Former Assembly chair LaFrance received 55% of the vote and had a 10-point lead over Mayor Bronson in early results posted Tuesday.
Tuesday is the last day to send in ballots or vote in person. Preliminary results are expected after 8 p.m.
As of Thursday evening, more than 35,500 ballots had already arrived at the Anchorage election center.
Contractors and equipment and have been staged on site for weeks at a cost of about $100,000 per day, according to a city memorandum.
Sharon Lechner gave Bronson her resignation letter April 30 just after the Assembly unanimously approved revisions to the city budget that evening.
Incumbent Mayor Dave Bronson is attempting to sway voters by leaning into Suzanne LaFrance’s association with the Assembly.
In campaign messaging to voters and during debates, LaFrance and Bronson have promised to lead the city in starkly different ways.
The utilities said they made “substantive revisions to the program,” but it still drew blowback from groups that wanted water restored to the full length of the river.
Attorneys for the Assembly on Wednesday also appealed a decision by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska that has left the municipality without voting rights over the plan to restore the river.
The rezone will allow the land to be developed into high-density multifamily housing, such as apartments, along with some commercial uses.
The Assembly on Tuesday certified the results of the April regular city election.
John Snelson, chief of code enforcement for the municipality, said the incident was not politically motivated.
Also, the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, which regulates utilities, denied the Anchorage Assembly’s request to reinstate the municipality’s voting power as a majority owner of the Eklutna Hydroelectric Project.
During a Thursday special meeting, Assembly members also voted down Mayor Dave Bronson’s push to revive a mass homeless shelter in East Anchorage.