Alaska’s unique election system could delay Senate control decision

The race between Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola is crucial in determining which party will control the Senate. Pollster Sean Trende, of RealClearPolitics and the American Enterprise Institute, predicted the winner won’t be clear until two weeks after Election Day. He described a process involving air transport from remote areas and multiple rounds of ranked-choice voting.

Reaching polling places in Alaska can be a remarkable feat. One family, the Bondys, famously traveled by dogsled for eight hours and 225 miles to vote, a story documented in the 2016 film *OneVote*. Ballots from remote communities are transported by plane, a necessity in a state with 16 times more aircraft than any other.

Ballots postmarked by Election Day must be received within 10 days, with an extended 15-day window for overseas ballots. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, currently a candidate for governor, experienced a similar delay when he won his first election in 2012, waiting for ballots from locations like Bahrain and Cambodia.

“There’s a lot of rural communities. There’s a lot of military voters and military families here,” explained Glenn Wright, a political scientist at the University of Alaska Southeast. “That’s how things come and go.”

The state’s ranked-choice voting system will also contribute to the extended counting period, as officials redistribute votes from eliminated candidates.

Adding to the complexity, the Justice Department has filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the election result if Sullivan loses, alleging that the presence of Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. on the ballot was an attempt to manipulate the vote. Former President Trump has called for Peltola to withdraw from the race.