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Relatively few candidates were running for the seat before Young's death. The candidate filing deadline was April 1. The sheer number of candidates left some voters overwhelmed, and many of the candidates themselves faced challenges in setting up a campaign on the fly and trying to leave an impression on voters in a short period of time. Corbisier sued state elections officials on behalf of a person identified as B.L., a registered voter in Anchorage with a visual impairment. The ruling came in a case filed days earlier by Robert Corbisier, executive director of the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights. They asked the supreme court to reverse the order. Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, released a statement expressing gratitude “to all of my wonderful supporters who voted to make Alaska great again!”Įarlier Saturday, the Alaska Supreme Court reversed and vacated a lower court order that had barred state election officials from certifying the results of the special primary until visually impaired voters were given a “full and fair” opportunity to participate.Īttorneys for the state had interpreted Friday's order from Superior Court Judge Una Gandbhir as preventing elections officials from concluding voting as scheduled on Saturday. They have targeted June 25 to certify the race. Saturday marked the first ballot count state elections officials plan additional counts on Wednesday and Friday, and a final count on June 21. This was the first election, too, under a system approved by voters in 2020 that ends party primaries and uses ranked choice voting in general elections. This election was unlike any the state has seen, crammed with candidates and conducted primarily by mail. The winner of the special election will serve the remainder of Young’s term, which ends in January. The top four vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, will advance to an August special election in which ranked choice voting will be used. The Associated Press has not called any winners in the special primary. Ballots had to be postmarked by Saturday. The division reported late Saturday that it had received about 139,000 ballots so far. It was not immediately clear how many ballots were outstanding. The initial results released by the state Division of Elections included 108,729 votes.