FNSB counts remaining ballots in 2023 municipal elections

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) - The 2023 municipal election season in the Fairbanks North Star Borough is wrapping up, with the final vote count released Tuesday, October 10.

A small group of community members gathered at the Mona Lisa Drexler Assembly Chambers in the Juanita Helms Administration Center at 2:00 p.m.

There, all outstanding ballots were fed into a machine and added to the total count. These included 1,333 absentee and 559 question ballots, divided between the borough, City of Fairbanks and City of North Pole elections.

This comes after a week of analysis by the borough’s canvassing board, which looks through each outstanding ballot for any errors or reasons for potential disqualification.

As with the canvassing board’s review, the final tally was open to the public.

While candidates’ percentages of votes shifted, no results were changed from Election Day as a result of the added ballots.

The closest race this year was for seat D on the Interior Gas Utility Board, where out of more than 13 thousand votes cast, Pete Kelly received only 26 more votes than Sherri Wall.

The borough assembly is scheduled to certify the borough’s election results and swear in new members of the assembly and school board at its regular meeting of October 26.

These new members will begin serving the following Monday.

The latest numbers can be found here.

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