Looking to boost voter turnout, the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly will consider an ordinance creating a system to vote by mail in borough elections. Assemblymen Lance Roberts and Karl Kassel are backing the ordinance, which will be considered this month and could take effect in 2016, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported. “Voter participation within the borough is not the greatest,” Kassel said. “I am hoping that we can get more people to participate by making it easier for them.”
Nearly 17,100 residents cast ballots in 2011, but the number dropped to 9,828 in 2013 and 11,456 in 2014, borough clerk Nanci Ashford-Bingham said.
Under the proposed revised system, the borough would mail ballots to voters two weeks before Election Day. Voters could mail them back or drop them off. Ballots received by mail would be processed the same way as absentee and questioned ballots are processed now, Ashford-Bingham said.
Full Article: Fairbanks to consider mail-in ballots | Juneau Empire – Alaska’s Capital City Online Newspaper.