Alaska voting issues

2008 election
For the 2008 election Alaska used the following voting machines in addition to hand-counted paper ballots in some counties. For a county-by-county list of the specific machines (and the source for this section) see Verified Votings' Verifier tool.

Direct-Recording Electronic (DRE) machines with a paper trail:


 * Premier Election Solutions's (Diebold) AccuVote-TSX voting machine.

Optical scan machines:


 * Premier Election Solutions's (Diebold) AccuVote-OS voting machine.

Governmental election authorities
Alaska Division of Elections

Director: [mailto:gail.fenumiai@alaska.gov Gail Fenumiai]
 * Physical Address:
 * Division of Elections, Court Plaza Building, 240 Main Street, 4th Floor, Juneau, AK 99801


 * Mailing Address:
 * Division of Elections, PO Box 110017, Juneau, AK 99811-0017


 * Director's Office:
 * Phone (907) 465-4611
 * Toll-Free (866) 952-8683
 * Fax (907) 465-3203

Vote tabulation procedures

 * Nov 18, 2008. Counting has been completed in the Alaska general election. With only 2,500 overseas ballots remaining to be counted, challenger Mark Begich has defeated long-time Senator Ted Stevens by a margin of 3,724 votes, well outside the range which would allow Stevens to request a state-funded recount.
 * Nov 12, 2008. Over 30% of the state's ballots remain uncounted, according to tallies released by the Alaska Division of Elections. Over 90,000 absentee, early, and "question" ballots have been held pending verification, and more continue to arrive; absentee ballots sent by mail have up to 15 days after election day (if mailed from overseas) to arrive. Several extremely close races cannot be called due to the large number of outstanding ballots, including the closely-watched race between Senator Ted Stevens and challenger Mark Begich. Currently Stevens leads Begich by 3,257 votes. According to Gail Fenumiai, Director of the Division of Elections, the majority of the ballots will be counted today, with the remainder completed before the state deadline of November 19. Alaska is one of the few states where all votes are counted on the state, rather than county, level.
 * From the Alaska Divison of Elections: Outstanding Absentee, Early and Questioned Ballots To Be Counted – District Breakdown (Updated 11.10.2008)


 * Nov 10, 2008. More than 50,000 votes which were not included in the original election-day tallies in Alaska will be counted on Wednesday, according to election officials. No absentee or early votes, which make up a substantial portion of Alaska's vote tallies, have yet been counted; Alaska officials cross-check all ballots against election day's precinct voter lists to ensure that no one has voted twice before beginning the count.


 * For an extensive log of voting machine problems, see the VotersUnite! report on election incidents.

State and local non-governmental election organizations
League of Women Voters, Alaska; Marianne Mills, President
 * LWV of Alaska
 * 2529 David Street
 * Juneau, Alaska 99801
 * Phone: 907-364-2614
 * Email: mariannemills@msn.com
 * Website: http://lwvalaska.org/index.html

Regional Offices


 * League of Women Voters of Anchorage
 * PO Box 101345
 * Anchorage, Alaska 99510-1345
 * Phone: (907) 274-8477
 * E-Mail: league@lwvanchorage.org
 * Website:http://www.lwvanchorage.org/index.html


 * Central Peninsula League of Women Voters
 * PO Box 2381
 * Kenai, AK 99811
 * Contact: Lois Pillifant, President
 * Phone: (907) 260-3111
 * Email: Mom@Alaska.net
 * Website: http://lwvalaska.org/cities/contact_ken.html


 * League of Women Voters of the Tanana Valley
 * P.O. Box 71974
 * Fairbanks, AK 99707
 * Phone: (907) 456-8963
 * Email: LWVAlaska@Hotmail.com
 * http://lwvalaska.org/indextv.html