Alaska still counting ballots as 60,000 votes remain untallied

Alaska remains in the middle of a multi-day ballot counting process, with approximately 60,000 votes still left to be tallied. Final outcomes for many statewide and legislative contests will not be determined until after the November 18 deadline for receiving absentee ballots, when the state will conduct its ranked choice tabulation.

As of Thursday, November 6, the Alaska Division of Elections has processed 215,912 ballots. While this initial figure represents the bulk of Election Day and early, in-person votes, a significant portion of the electorate’s voice—roughly one-quarter of all votes—remains uncounted. According to the Alaska Division of Elections, the outstanding pool includes approximately 20,000 early votes cast in the final four days leading up to the election and roughly 40,000 absentee ballots.

The Geography of the Count

The slow pace of the tally is a structural reality of Alaska’s vast, rugged landscape. In many rural communities, election materials must be transported by air or sea, creating logistical hurdles that simply do not exist in the lower 48 states. Even when weather permits, the limited mail service in remote areas can lead to predictable delays in getting ballots to regional offices in Anchorage and beyond.

This reality has often fueled calls for legislative reform. Former election officials have repeatedly urged state lawmakers to allow the Division of Elections to process and scan absentee ballots before Election Day. While a measure to implement ballot curing—which would allow voters to fix minor errors like missing signatures—passed the legislature last session, it was ultimately vetoed by Governor Mike Dunleavy. Consequently, the state continues to rely on a manual verification process that requires a witness signature and a personal identifier, such as a birthdate or the final four digits of a Social Security number, for every absentee envelope.

High Stakes in Tight Races

The current uncertainty has intensified focus on the state’s ranked choice voting system. In the race for U.S. Senate, incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan and former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola are separated by only 637 votes, with Peltola holding a slight lead. Because neither candidate has yet cleared the 50% threshold, the final outcome will depend on how the votes for third-party and independent candidates are redistributed during the tabulation on November 18.

“The lengthy ballot-counting process has thrust the state’s election system into the national spotlight as Alaskans and Outside political observers alike wait to see if the state will join others that Democrats flipped out of Republican control,” as reported by the Anchorage Daily News.

While both the Sullivan and Peltola campaigns have utilized publicly available cast vote record data to project their own paths to victory, these early analyses are inherently incomplete. Many rural polling places do not use electronic ballot scanners, meaning the data currently available to the public and media outlets only reflects first-choice votes from those regions. The full ranking data from these areas will only be integrated into the system once the ballots are physically transported and processed at central counting facilities.

The Path to Certification

The Division of Elections has set a clear, if extended, schedule for the coming weeks. A new round of results is expected early next week, likely on Monday or Tuesday, which will incorporate the early votes cast in the four days before the election and a batch of absentee ballots. The final deadline for domestic absentee ballots to arrive is November 13, while overseas ballots have until November 18 to reach state offices.

The state has targeted November 25 as the date to certify the final results. Until then, the focus remains on the meticulous, and often slow, work of verifying every individual ballot. For a state that allows “no excuse” absentee voting—a policy that saw over 51,000 mail-in ballots cast in the 2024 general election, as documented in official state reports—this waiting period is the expected cost of ensuring every eligible vote is verified and counted.

With thousands of ballots still in transit and the mechanics of ranked choice tabulation looming, the winners of Alaska’s most competitive races remain an open question. The state’s electoral process is designed to prioritize accuracy and security over speed, leaving observers to wait until the final envelopes arrive from the furthest reaches of the Last Frontier.