The Canvass Board for the Fairbanks North Star Borough has selected the random precincts and races as part of the new hand count audit for this year’s municipal election.
The audit, which got underway Wednesday, aims to add a layer of verification for machine-tabulated votes, according to the ordinance that established it.
On Wednesday afternoon, a group of three election workers huddled around a couple tables stacked with ballots inside the Assembly chambers, manually counting up votes for School Board Seat C. That’s the randomly chosen race from the early voting station being cross-checked as part of the audit.
Election night results show Audra Hull ahead of Sam Spencer in that contest by about 900 votes.
“Canvass Board is in here working hard, doing their process, and starting the new process that the Assembly adopted this last year, the manual verification,” Borough Clerk April Trickey said in a short interview.
According to unofficial results, 2,846 borough ballots were cast during early voting.
Trickey said the election workers began by separating borough early voting ballots from the City of Fairbanks and North Pole early ballots. She said they then counted the borough ballots, ensuring the total number matched the machine count, before zeroing in on School Board Seat C.
“They sorted out the ballots for that race by how someone filled in the oval. And they’re counting those numbers right now to make sure they match the machine totals,” she said. “And if that is good, then they’re going to move on to the next randomly selected precincts.”
The count is the result of an ordinance the Assembly narrowly passed in April after listening to public testimony and making a couple amendments. Sponsored by Assemblymember David Guttenberg, it requires a manual audit for a randomly chosen contested race within two randomly selected precincts, as well as randomly chosen contested race from the early voting station. Including the early voting station, the borough has 33 precincts total.
The measure also established a process if a discrepancy of greater than 1% emerges between the hand count and machine tabulation after the audit.
Some perceived merits of that ordinance surfaced at a candidate forum in September. Assembly Seat B incumbent Brett Rotermund called it a “good compromise.”
“We did strike a really good deal with Mr. Gutenberg’s ordinance,” he said.
In April, when the ordinance was up for public hearing, Rotermund attempted to move an amendment that would have required counting all contested races in the audit. That amendment failed, and Rotermund ultimately voted no on the final measure as it passed 5-4.
Now, his bid for reelection is featuring prominently in the first iteration of the audit.
Apart from early voting, the two precincts selected were Goldstream No. 2 and Moose Creek. Preliminary results indicate the locations combine for around 500 ballots, though the precinct-level figures published Tuesday don’t show figures for undervotes.
Within those two precincts, Assembly Seat B was the randomly selected race for both, according to Trickey.
Incumbent Brett Rotermund’s campaign for that seat had been uncontested. That was until Allegory Smith launched an official write-in campaign on Sept. 22. Preliminary results show Rotermund will be reelected. He’s collected about 75% of the total vote.
Once the audit is complete, the April ordinance requires that a written report documents the discrepancies, if any, between the hand count and machine count and describe how discrepancies were resolved.
Trickey said that report will be available as part of the Assembly’s agenda packet for their meeting to certify the election later this month.
“It will include, as normal, the Canvass Board report and the results – the unofficial results – and also the results of the manual verification, so the public will have access to that information at that time,” she said.
The Canvass Board is also reviewing the 961 outstanding absentee ballots and almost 489 outstanding questioned ballots. Those will be counted next Tuesday. The Assembly is scheduled to take up election certification Oct. 23.