Anchorage mails 200K ballots for April 4 municipal election

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Registered Anchorage voters should begin seeing ballots in their mailboxes as early as Wednesday as the city gets set for the April 4 municipal election.

Anchorage Election Administrator Jamie Heinz said registered voters who have not received a ballot by Tuesday, March 21 should call the Anchorage Vote Center at 907-243-VOTE and request a replacement ballot.

Although the election is officially conducted by mail, there are several ways that people can vote and return their ballots in person.

“You can vote your ballot that’s mailed to you and use the secured drop boxes to return them, return them by mail, return them by the Vote Centers, you can vote in person at the Vote Centers,” said Heinz.

The city is offering 18 secured drop boxes around town which Heinz said will be emptied at least once a day. In addition, starting March 27, in-person Voting Centers will open at City Hall, the Loussac Library and The Eagle River Town Center.

People who want to see exactly when their ballot is mailed, received or processed, can sign up online for ballot tracking. Heinz said if election workers find an issue with a ballot, they will notify voters by mail.

“We have three days to send a letter, a cure letter, to voters if we encounter a signature that doesn’t match or if they simply forget to sign their envelope,” she said.

If people get a ballot that isn’t theirs in the mail, Heinz asks that they not throw it away.

“You can put it back in the mail stream, return to sender. They can write ‘return to sender’ on the ballot and stick it in a drop box,” she said. “And we provide that information to the state so that the voter rolls can be updated with that information.”

Heinz said the city is mailing about 20,000 fewer ballots this year than it did in the last municipal election. She said it’s a direct result of the state having more accurate voter information. Another change for this year, all the ballot propositions don’t fit on one page, so there are two ballot cards in each envelope. Heinz said voters who chose to mail in their voted ballots will need to use two forever stamps in order to have correct postage.

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