Key Alaska election results largely unchanged as thousands of additional ballots are counted

The Alaska Division of Elections released the results from 17,000 ballots Friday, but thousands of additional ballots remain to be counted, according to figures provided by the division.

The latest count, bringing the total of votes tallied in Alaska to over 321,000, did not significantly change the results in several key races, including the one for Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat.

Republican Nick Begich remained ahead of Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola after the latest ballot tally. Begich had just under 48.9% of votes counted as of Friday evening, slightly less than three points ahead of Peltola’s 45.9%. Begich hasn’t declared victory, nor has Peltola conceded.

Unless the leading candidate in the race receives over 50% of the final ballot tally, the winner of the race will be determined by a ranked choice tabulation. The Division of Elections is planning to tabulate results on Wednesday, the last day that the division will accept ballots from overseas voters.

The ballots counted Friday include over 1,100 early votes cast before Election Day, around 9,000 absentee votes that were delivered by mail, and nearly 7,000 questioned ballots, which are often cast when a voter’s registration is not up-to-date or by voters who cast ballots in polling locations outside their designated precinct. Alaska law allows the Division of Elections to count absentee ballots from in-state voters as long as they arrived by Friday.

Division Director Carol Beecher, who is overseeing statewide elections for the first time this year after being appointed to the position last year, said the division would release an additional ballot count Saturday. A final ballot count is scheduled Wednesday.

Election results were posted Friday after 6:30 p.m. Beecher blamed the late hour on power outages in Juneau and Nome, where division offices are located.

President-Elect Donald Trump is easily winning the state with 55% of votes counted so far. Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris has just under 41% of the vote. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was tapped by Trump to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services, had 1.65% of the vote in Alaska.

A ballot question on repealing Alaska’s open primaries and ranked choice voting system remains too close to call. Of votes counted so far, just under 50.3% are in favor of the repeal initiative, which was backed by the Alaska Republican Party. Just over 49.7% of voters are opposed to the repeal. The gap between the “yes” and “no” votes sits at less than 1,700 ballots, with thousands more remaining to be counted.

As additional absentee ballots have been announced, the gap between the camps has shrunk, signaling that the ballot measure — whether it succeeds or fails — will do so only by a razor-thin margin.

Members of the Alaska House have already announced plans to form a new majority coalition that will bring together a group of Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans to control the chamber, in a flip from the current mostly-Republican majority. But one of the presumed members of the coalition is in a precarious position that got even more precarious with the latest round of results.

Democratic incumbent Rep. Cliff Groh, who represents a North Anchorage district, was leading Republican David Nelson by only 10 votes after the Friday vote tally. Additional votes could come in the race as absentee ballots are tallies.

The latest ballot count did not significantly change the results in any other legislative races. The outcomes in a handful of legislative seats will not be known until ranked-choice ballots are tabulated.