With Alaska election count stalled, we should get a clue how they do it Outside

On Nov. 12, 2008, the Juneau Empire reported that Alaska election officials were struggling to explain why the vote count was so much slower than any other state a week after the general election.

"I wouldn't say we're slow," Gail Fenumiai, director of the Elections Division, told reporter Pat Forgey. "Statutorily we have until the 15th day after the election."

“Fenumiai said she didn't know why other states managed to count their ballots more quickly,” the Empire said.

"I don't know how other states count (ballots)," she said. "I don't have any idea how they handle things."

“Fenumiai said they've delayed counting absentee ballots, more than 60,000 of them, until they can compare them to poll books to make sure no one voted twice this time.”

(Twenty-six people voted twice in the 2008 primary, casting absentee ballots and voting on Election Day, the state said at the time. That practice of checking the lists of who voted Tuesday is a key factor in the delay in counting the 2020 vote, given the surge in absentee voting.)

"The duplicate voting choice we made was a prudent choice, I think, on the Division of Elections' part," the elections director said in 2008.

“Fenumiai said she did not know what process other states use to prevent duplicate voting.”

Remember, these were comments from 12 years ago.

On Thursday, the Anchorage Daily News posted a story that contained nearly the exact same comment from Fenumiai about not knowing how they do it Outside.

“Fenumiai said she is not familiar with other states’ procedures and cannot say why they are able to count more quickly than Alaska while maintaining security,” reporter James Brooks wrote.

It’s about time that the Alaska election division, supervised by Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer, found out how they do it Outside.

It is astonishing that we are not trying to learn from other states and get a grip on what works and what doesn’t Outside.

The Anchorage Daily News story says that security, not speed, is the priority. Of course.

But the newspaper accepts the untested assumption that it is impossible or impractical to have speed and security.

State law requires that at least a week before Election Day, the state shall begin reviewing absentee ballots, which would allow at least some of them to be counted on Election Day after the polls close. The law does not say it has to begin seven days in advance—the review could have been started weeks in advance, as happened in some other states.

The Anchorage Daily News claimed that the law setting up the system that requires the start of absentee-vote counting at 8 p.m. on Election Day “is less clear than it seems.”

The law is clear. It’s the reporting that is not.

This is a good overview of election policies elsewhere that could be of use in Alaska when we decide to get a clue how they do it Outside.