Republicans trail Democrats, independents in requesting by-mail ballots for Alaska’s elections

Update: The original version of this post used numbers from the Friday release of the absentee ballots. This post has since been updated with numbers from the Monday, Aug. 17 release of information.

Despite having nearly double the number of registered party members, the Alaska Republican Party trails the Alaska Democratic Party (as well as independents, but they’re the largest overall political group) in requesting by-mail ballots for the state’s primary and general elections.

According to numbers provided by the Alaska Division of Elections on Monday, 15,283 Republican voters have requested absentee ballots for Tuesday’s primary election while 17,002 Democrats and 28,194 independent voters (nonpartisan and undeclared) have requested absentee ballots. Most absentee ballot requests are by mail, but this also includes other formats like online and fax voting that are far more limited.

Alaska allows voters to request by-mail ballots for any reason up to 10 days ahead of an election. The deadline to request by-mail absentee ballots for the primary election has already passed. Early in-person ballots can still be cast today and regular in-person will be held on Tuesday.

The application for the general election is due Oct. 24 and can be completed online.

Republicans from President Donald Trump on down have been busy casting doubt on the safety and viability of by-mail voting but it looks like the only group that message appears to be resonating with is Republicans.

As a percentage of overall voter registration, Democrats lead Alaska’s major political groups with 22.36% voting absentee while just 11.17% of Republicans voting absentee.

Primary Election Absentee Voting (As of Aug. 17, 2020)					As of 8/3/20
Party	Absentee	Mail, etc	In-Person	% of Party	Total voters
Undeclared	16,967	16,641	326	6.50%	260,989
Nonpartisan	11,770	11,553	217	14.38%	81,873
Republican	15,642	15,283	359	11.17%	139,985
Democrat	17,200	17,002	198	22.36%	76,930
AK Independence	1,298	1,261	37	7.50%	17,304
Moderate Party	13	13	0	7.56%	172
UCES’ Clowns	9	9	0	8.91%	101
Green Party	153	150	3	9.77%	1,566
Progressive	28	28	0	29.17%	96
Libertarian	298	287	11	4.21%	7,081
Veterans Party	43	41	2	3.42%	1,257
AK Constitution	11	10	1	1.86%	591
Owl Party	3	3	0	12.00%	25
Patriot’s Party	4	3	1	4.26%	94
Alliance Party	1	1	0	12.50%	8
Total	63,440	62,285	1,155	10.79%	588,072

The one category Republicans are leading Democrats is in early in-person voting. As of Monday, they’ve cast 359 ballots this way while Democrats have cast 198 absentee ballots in person.

Democrats have comparatively little at stake in Tuesday’s primary election with just six contested legislative primaries to be decided and two congressional races that have clear frontrunners.

Republicans, meanwhile, face an incredibly tense primary season with several incumbent legislators from both the moderate and far-right wings of the party facing serious challenges from party loyalists. Republicans hold their primary on a closed ballot that’s only open to Republicans and independent voters.

When looking at absentee voting by House district, Republicans trail independent voters in every race and sometimes by a lot. Here’s a breakdown of absentee voting by House district:

House District	Republicans	Independents (Undeclared and Nonpartisan)
1	243	482
2	194	249
3	310	358
4	302	908
5	233	600
6	414	567
7	441	468
8	445	447
9	539	590
10	513	652
11	479	631
12	570	742
13	491	544
14	851	1067
15	322	526
16	336	773
17	289	652
18	255	953
19	119	393
20	282	907
21	411	1227
22	486	1018
23	266	692
24	728	1252
25	362	945
26	646	1006
27	519	1049
28	1027	1756
29	576	717
30	568	730
31	535	1149
32	308	552
33	267	1285
34	315	948
35	386	740
36	305	487
37	153	277
38	46	185
39	45	91
40	48	81
97	3	4
99	14	37

Turning to the general election, Republicans are also trailing behind.

There are 17,299 Democrats (22.5%) who’ve registered to vote remotely in the Nov. 3 general election, 30,077 independent voters (8% total) and just 12,410 Republicans (11.5%).

Party/Group	Absentee applications	% of Party	Total Voters as of 8/3
Undeclared	17,667	6.77%	260,989
Nonpartisan	12,410	15.16%	81,873
Republican	16,155	11.54%	139,985
Democrat	17,299	22.49%	76,930
AK Independence	1,365	7.89%	17,304
Moderate Party	13	7.56%	172
UCES’ Clowns	8	7.92%	101
Green Party	166	10.60%	1,566
Progressive	29	30.21%	96
Libertarian	307	4.34%	7,081
Veterans Party	50	3.98%	1,257
AK Constitution	11	1.86%	591
Owl Party	3	12.00%	25
Patriot’s Party	4	4.26%	94
Alliance Party	1	12.50%	8
Total	65,488	11.14%	588,072