Kenai Peninsula Votes, in partnership with the League of Women Voters of the Kenai, hosted a voter registration drive in conjunction with National Voter Registration Day Tuesday, Sept. 17 at Kachemak Bay Campus. National Voter Registration Day is the largest single-day voter registration drive in the country.

Volunteers from KPV and LWV set up shop upstairs in KBC’s Pioneer Hall with information tables and signs to provide community members with accurate and up-to-date information on the upcoming municipal and general elections. The campus was also packed with those attending South Peninsula Hospital’s Senior Wellness Day event — registration drive volunteers welcomed the additional foot traffic.

Shari Daugherty, KPV member and election worker for the Diamond Ridge precinct, and Colleen Powers, also a Diamond Ridge precinct election worker, said that they’d been spending their shift answering questions and checking addresses for prospective voters.

“The breath and soul of Kenai Peninsula Votes is helping (people) get registered or get their absentee ballot issued from the state that they’re from,” Daugherty said. “An interesting piece of the voting puzzle is that, just because you’re not at home, that doesn’t mean you can’t vote in your area. You just have to do an absentee (ballot).”

The volunteers also had at their disposal the borough election pamphlets, which Daugherty said used to be mailed to every voter, but are distributed as such no longer.

“We’ll have them at other events, plus we’ll have them at the precincts on (election) day,” she said.

The 2024 voter pamphlet for the Kenai Peninsula Borough Regular Municipal Election is also available on the borough website at www.kpb.us/images/KPB/CLK/Elections/2024_Voter_Pamphlet_WEB.pdf.

Alex Koplin, a founding member of KPV, assisted two out-of-state students attending KBC and a local community member with their absentee ballot applications.

“This event was successful. We had eight volunteers assisting throughout the day. We didn’t register any new voters, but some voters had changed their address since they last registered, so they updated their voter registration,” Koplin wrote in an email to Homer News on Monday. “There were lots of questions about the borough election coming up, as well as the Nov. 5 general election. We will continue (holding) voting drives at the local food bank and Homer High School this week.”

Volunteers at last week’s drive spoke to the importance of voters checking and updating their registration ahead of election days.

“We just think it’s a good idea for everybody to be registered. It’s really time consuming on election day when we have to deal with somebody doing a questioned ballot because they’re not on our rolls,” Powers said. “We don’t know if it’s because they’re in the wrong precinct or they’re not registered. We like everybody to come check, whether they think they’re registered or not, or if they’re concerned that we don’t have the right address.”

According to the Division of Elections, voters may be asked to vote a questioned ballot if their name is not on the precinct register, their residence address has changed, they did not arrive with identification, they already voted according to the precinct register, or if an observer challenges their qualifications to vote.

Those required to vote a questioned ballot will sign a questioned ballot register and complete a questioned ballot envelope with their information. The ballot is the same as a normal ballot, Division of Elections states. The ballot is placed inside a secrecy sleeve, then inside the ballot envelope, before being returned to a precinct poll worker.

Questioned ballots are not immediately counted on election day. Instead, they go to the Questioned Review Board, who then determines if a voter’s questioned ballot can be counted.

“(Questioned ballots) are counted in that two-week period after the election,” Powers said. “If people want their vote to count, the best thing is to come in and do early voting. That way we can find out if we have a wrong address … and then that could be corrected.”

Early and absentee in-person voting for the Oct. 1 municipal election is currently ongoing at Homer City Hall, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The final day to participate in early absentee voting for borough and City of Homer candidates is Monday, Sept. 30.

“It doesn’t matter what precinct you’re from, (early voting) is at City Hall,” Daugherty said.

According to the borough voter pamphlet, Homer City Hall has ballot styles available for the Anchor Point, Diamond Ridge, Fox River, Homer No. 1 (Homer City Hall), Homer No. 2 (Homer United Methodist Church), Kachemak City/Fritz Creek, Ninilchik, Seldovia/Kachemak Bay and Tyonek precincts.

Powers recommended participating earlier in the early voting period, rather than waiting for the final days before the municipal election, such as Friday, Sept. 27 or Monday, Sept. 30.

“Those days are busy, long lines,” she said. “That’s something I want people to know. If you come in (early), we always have a little bit of a crunch in that 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. time frame, but otherwise there were no lines or anything. But on the Friday and the Monday before the election, you’ll wait in long lines.”

The absentee by-mail application deadline for the City of Homer Regular Election is 5 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 27. The absentee by electronic application transmission deadline for both the City of Homer Regular Election and KPB Regular Election is 5 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 30.

Polls for the municipal election will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on election day, Tuesday, Oct. 1.

The deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 5 general election is Sunday, Oct. 6. Find more information on elections and voter registration at www.elections.alaska.gov/.

(from left to right) Shari Daugherty, Kelly Behen and Colleen Powers volunteer during the Voter Registration Drive hosted by Kenai Peninsula Votes and the League of Women Voters of the Kenai on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, at Kachemak Bay Campus in Homer, Alaska. (Delcenia Cosman/Homer News)

Community members browse information tables during the Voter Registration Drive hosted by Kenai Peninsula Votes and the League of Women Voters of the Kenai on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, at Kachemak Bay Campus in Homer, Alaska. (Delcenia Cosman/Homer News)