Why the Alaska Senate race keeps dragging on
By Easton Martin
Alaska’s U.S. Senate race remains undecided more than a week after Election Day, as election officials continue counting absentee ballots and waiting for additional votes to arrive. The unusually slow process has drawn attention to Alaska’s election procedures, particularly as Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan faces Democrat Mary Peltola in a closely contested race.
As of Wednesday, November 11, Peltola held 48.7% of the vote compared to Sullivan’s 47.1%, giving her a lead of approximately 3,975 votes. Roughly 14% of the expected vote remained uncounted, according to Associated Press estimates.
Alaska’s election system creates several logistical challenges that make its results slower to finalize than those in many other states. The state’s enormous geographic size makes transporting election materials difficult, particularly in remote communities where officials cannot simply drive ballots to centralized counting facilities. In 131 precincts, election workers also count ballots by hand before reporting their results to regional offices.
Absentee voting adds another layer to the process. Alaska allows domestic absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive through November 13. Overseas ballots receive an additional five days, with the final deadline falling on November 18. Election officials must also verify voter eligibility and review absentee ballots before including them in the official count.
The state’s ranked-choice voting system could extend the wait even further. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice vote, election officials will conduct a ranked-choice tabulation on November 18. The process eliminates the lowest-performing candidates and redistributes their votes according to voters’ subsequent preferences.
The Senate race carries additional complications because another candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., received approximately 4,100 votes. His name of course closely resembles that of the Republican incumbent, creating concerns about possible voter confusion. The Trump administration previously challenged the state’s certification procedures over that issue, although a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.
