OPINION: In rural Alaska, sometimes the polling places do not open. That needs to change.

Imagine showing up to the polls to vote on Election Day, but you find out that the only polling place within hundreds of miles will not open at all.

That was the reality for Alaskans in multiple rural communities during the primary election. It’s beyond unacceptable. It’s undemocratic. We must all demand more from the Division of Elections to ensure that all eligible voters have the ability to vote.

Admittedly, I have a vested interest in the outcomes of the recent primary and upcoming general elections, as I’m a candidate for State House, but I started really paying attention last month when I tried to vote and was not able to. I knew I had to travel to Anchorage for a board meeting on primary election day, so I made a plan to vote early in my hometown of Utqiaġvik. When I went to vote at the beginning of the early voting period, I was informed that the ballot materials had not arrived and I couldn’t vote. I soon learned that the same was true in Kotzebue and Bethel. In urban Alaska, residents began to vote.

It wasn’t until two days later that ballots arrived in Utqiaġvik, and I was able to cast my vote. Unfortunately, many others in my district never got that chance.

On Election Day, my friend in Wainwright told me that she tried to vote in the morning before having to fly out, but the polling place was not open. In Anaktuvuk Pass, the polling place did not open until after 7 p.m.; voters had less than an hour before polls closed. In Kaktovik and Wales, polling places never opened.

Was this just a fluke? Unfortunately not. In the 2022 general election, many polls in rural communities across Alaska never opened for in-person voting on Election Day. Barriers to voting in rural Alaska are persistent and glaring, including limited access to early voting tablets, the inability to translate official election information into Alaska Native languages, and the failure to receive absentee election materials before the voting window opens. About 15% of votes cast by Alaska Natives in rural Alaska are discarded due to technical errors like witness signature requirements and the lack of ballot curing, leaving long-term residents disenfranchised.

We cannot undo what has already been done. But we can, and do, expect a change in the future.

This is not a partisan issue, and there are nonpartisan groups like Get Out the Native Vote and the League of Women Voters that have reach and resources the Division of Elections can take advantage of — but that requires cooperation and communication. The Mobilization Center’s Rural Indigenous Outreach workers have expressed the availability to train election workers and be deployed to vulnerable precincts for the general election.

The residents of the North Slope and Northwest Arctic are Alaskans. Voting is our sacred and constitutional right. I hope my fellow Alaskans, from all parts of the state, join me in calling for the state Division of Elections to act with urgency to ensure this does not happen again.

Robyn Burke is a candidate for State House for District 40, which includes the North Slope and Northwest Arctic. Robyn serves as the president of the North Slope Borough School District Board of Education and also serves on the boards of Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat and Iḷisaġvik Board of Trustees. These are her personal statements and are not intended to represent organizations she is affiliated with.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.