Many folks in Anchorage this past week voted early because of the convenience, more of them than last month, but that is not an indication of a higher overall turnout, according to an election official as told in this Alaska Public Media report.
“We are at 11,167,” said Deputy Clerk for Elections Amanda Moser of the early votes and requests for ballots by mail. That’s around 3,000 more early votes than were cast last month at this time ahead of the initial mayoral election with a broad field of candidates.
More than 20 people stood in line at the Loussac Library around lunch-time Monday to cast early ballots. The daily numbers of early voters have just about doubled at the polling site compared to past elections, according to Sharron McCracken, an elections official. She attributes the growth to a mix of the mayor’s race getting more interesting in the last month, better promotion from the city Clerk’s office, and plain old convenience.
“Most (people) seem to be just thrilled that they can do it on their schedule,” McCracken said in the library lobby, the line winding past the door, “just real happy to get it out of the way.”
McCracken is quick to counter that increased early returns are no guarantee of high turnout on election day, something she saw in the April election this year.
“Last election we thought for sure the percentage of voters would have been way higher,” McCracken recalled, “and yet then the final total was still only like 27% turnout.” 27.93% to be exact.
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