Election Day (Nov. 6) is just a week away, but Bethel residents who plan to vote early got some good news this week: the state Division of Elections has added Bethel to a list of towns that will get colorful early voting stickers.
KYUK reported last week that the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta would not get special stickers that feature cute cartoon animals against iconic Alaskan landscapes. The stickers come in several languages, including Alaska Native ones.
These stickers were unveiled at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention earlier this month, and the Y-K Delta has the most tribes in the state, but only designated early voting locations were originally going to get the stickers. The Y-K Delta allows residents to vote prior to Election Day, but the local process is considered absentee-in-person voting, which means people go to a location and fill out a ballot which will be mailed off and reviewed by a bipartisan review board. This is because it’s hard to set up a system in Bethel that would verify voter identifications electronically.
Because there were a limited number of stickers, they were originally allocated to early voting locations in Anchorage, Juneau, Fairbanks, Wasilla, and Nome. But now that has changed. Samantha Miller, a spokeswoman for the Division of Elections, says that the agency decided to add more locations after they re-evaluated their supply in Nome. The new communities include Bethel, Dillingham, Unalaska, Prudhoe Bay, Kotzebue, and Utqiagvik. The stickers are available to voters until they run out.