We voted. Now let’s wait for the tabulation round to know the results!
BY tu voz importa
The big day happened! Voters had the opportunity to rank their votes in the midterm elections and used the power of their voices to select their representatives. However, the election is not over. Since in multiple races no candidate reached over 50% of the vote, they will be heading to tabulation on November 23th, where voter´s second and third choices will be considered. Here’s all that you need to know about what happened on Election Day and what to expect on the upcoming tabulation.
The first thing to know is that we don’t have final results yet. As of November 19th, about 97% of the ballots have been counted. There are still ballots coming in that need to be counted. However, some of the trends are starting to become apparent, and we can have an idea of which of the races are going to head to the tabulation round later this month. For instance, it seems that the Senate race is headed to tabulation. No candidate has passed the 50% needed to win in the first round. Republican Lisa Murkowski leads with about 43.3% of the first-choice vote. This is followed by Republican Kelly Tshibaka, holding 42.7% of first choices. Democrat Pat Chesbro trails with 10.3%. Unless there’s a statistical surprise, the senate will be decided using the second and third preferences.A similar scenario is happening in the race for Alaska’s seat in the House of Representatives. Mary Peltola is currently leading with 48.7% of first choices. Republicans Sara Palin and Nick Begich hold 25.8% and 23.4% of first choices respectively. Peltola is quite close to winning over 50% of first-choice votes. It is possible for her to win in the first round with the ballots that remained counted. Yet, we will have to wait until the end of the month to know for sure. Although, as of now it seems that this race is headed to the tabulation round.
However, this is not the case with the governor’s race. The Republican incumbent governor, Mike Dunleavy is leading with 50.3% of first choices, exempting him from the tabulation round. He is followed by Democrat Les Gara with 24.2% and former governor Bill Walker with 20.7% of all first choices. Another looming question on Election Day was whether Alaska was going to hold another constitutional convention, but that was swiftly answered by voters. Voters rejected the proposal by nearly 70% of the vote. As was previously stated, we won’t know the results for sure until November 23th, when the tabulation round takes place. If you want to watch it, KTOO will be doing coverage on television and live streaming starting at 4 PM that day and will be available at https://t.co/pzAERDiTBm. In the meantime, let’s celebrate because we used our voices and because with the new ranked-choice system, they are more important than ever.
