Control of the U.S. Senate could remain unresolved for weeks, with the outcome potentially hinging on a painstaking vote count across Alaska’s frozen tundra.
Alaska has roughly 600,000 voters spread across 586,000 square miles. Its distinctive ballot-counting procedures, combined with a legal challenge to the race, could postpone the result for days or even weeks.
The Senate contest between Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola could be decisive in determining which party controls the chamber.
“We will [not] know who is going to win Alaska [until] two weeks after Election Day,” pollster Sean Trende predicted. Trende, a polling analyst at RealClearPolitics and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, spoke during an Election Watch briefing organized by the institute on Oct. 20.
“It will be a toss-up until the last ballots come in from the Alaskan bush by two-prop engine, and then put it through like five rounds of ranked-choice voting.”
The potential delay reflects both Alaska’s unusual geography and an election season featuring competitive races in states that have traditionally leaned Republican.
The state’s voting challenges were highlighted by the Bondy family, who traveled 225 miles by dogsled over eight hours to cast their ballots, as shown in the 2016 documentary OneVote.
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In rural Alaska, ballots arrive by plane in a state with 16 times as many aircraft as any other. Ballots postmarked by Election Day must be received within 10 days to be counted, while overseas ballots have a 15-day deadline.
Former Alaska state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, now a candidate for governor in another toss-up race, experienced the wait firsthand after his narrow 2012 victory. His result remained uncertain until overseas ballots arrived from locations including Bahrain and Cambodia.
“There are a lot of rural communities. There’s a lot of military voters and military families here,” said Glenn Wright, a political scientist at the University of Alaska Southeast. “That’s how things come and go. A lot of supplies are coming in in the summertime by boat, by barge, by ferry boat. They’re flying ballots in and out.”
Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system could add another layer of delay. Election officials must review ballots and redistribute votes when candidates’ initial first-choice totals are insufficient to advance.
This year, however, the logistical hurdles are only part of the uncertainty.
The Justice Department filed suit this month seeking to invalidate the result if Sullivan loses. The filing cites the presence of a second candidate, retired elementary school teacher Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., on the ballot and alleges that the candidacy was intended to draw votes away.
President Trump has called on Peltola to withdraw from the race after reports alleged that her campaign helped engineer the scheme.
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