Many Alaskans heading to the polls On Tuesday, they will vote on candidates for president, the House of Representatives and state legislatures, and they will also decide on two ballot measures. Polling locations on election day are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Check back for new updates throughout the day.

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Polls opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday across the state, but not in two western Alaska villages, according to the Division of Elections.

Voting in St. George, where 31 registered voters live, would not begin until 2 p.m. due to a windstorm, Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher said Tuesday.

The polling station also did not open as planned in Wales, where 63 registered voters live. It was not immediately clear when Welsh voters would be able to cast their ballots.

“We have a team to work in Wales, but they are waiting for the weather to permit travel,” Beecher said in a brief email.

Wales, a village in western Alaska, also did not open for voting in the August primary. The Division of Elections said at the time that it had tried to find replacement poll workers to open the precinct, but none were available.

Beecher said Monday that the Division of Elections planned to send poll workers to Egegik, a village in southwest Alaska, so the polling place could open as scheduled Tuesday for the village’s 96 registered voters.

Meanwhile, downed power lines in South Anchorage left 3,100 people without power. The breakdown affected some voters at Tudor Elementary School who briefly voted using flashlights until power was restored.

(Election Day in Alaska: How to vote, what’s on the ballot, when to expect results)

Polls will be open across the state until 8 p.m. Alaskans will be able to find their voting location. online. In Anchorage, voters can also vote at Ted Stevens International Airport and Division of Elections offices in Midtown, regardless of their polling location.

The Division of Elections website was temporarily offline Tuesday morning due to a high volume of web traffic. The website was back online shortly before 10 a.m.

Counting of ballots

Once polls close, election workers are expected to begin counting ballots cast in person on Tuesday, as well as some early votes and mail-in ballots that arrived at Alaska Division of Elections offices through the end of October.

That leaves thousands of early and mail-in ballots that won’t be counted until a week after Election Day, meaning some close races could remain without a clear winner until the end of the month.

The Division of Elections expects to count just over 31,000 absentee ballots Tuesday evening, but only 155 of them came from rural districts across the state, including the North Slope and Southwest, western and northwest Alaska.

(Photos: Election Day in Anchorage)

The Division of Elections said about 79,000 absentee ballots were distributed to voters and nearly 49,000 of them were returned as of Sunday. Mail-in ballots arriving from overseas may be counted provided they arrive at the Division of Elections within 15 days of Election Day.

Additionally, nearly 62,000 Alaskans voted before Tuesday at one of twelve early voting locations.

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