If you want to vote in the primary by mail with an absentee ballot, you have to get the application in right away. Under state law, the application for an absentee ballot must be received by the Alaska Division of Elections 10 days before the election. That means that to vote in the primary by mail, the division needs to receive your absentee ballot request by Saturday, Aug. 8.
To meet that deadline, you will have to go online to get the application if you don’t already have it. Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer, who runs Alaska’s elections, says that online access to the application is the easiest, but voters can also request help over the phone.
“The easiest is to go to the Division of Elections website," said Meyer, “or you can just go to the state homepage and click on Lieutenant Governor, and the Division of Elections will come up, and you just hit the absentee ballot and fill it out online. And then you’re done, or you can print it out, fill it out, and fax it back in.”
Again, that application for an absentee ballot must be at the Alaska Division of Elections by Saturday, Aug. 8 to be able to vote absentee in the Aug. 18 primary.
Once you have a ballot, you must send it back completed by the day of the election. That means it has to be postmarked by Aug. 18 to be counted in the primary. The state is expecting a high number of absentee ballots this year, because many people are worried about the health risks of voting in-person during the coronavirus pandemic.