advocacy, advocacy education, get out the vote
Your Food Your Vote 2026: Alaska's Primary Elections
July 10, 2026
We all know it’s an election year, if by nothing else than the signs, commercials, and mailers around every corner. At the Alaska Food Policy Council, we are gearing up for another Get Out The Vote season – a time to help all Alaskans make a plan to vote, understand the candidates on your ballot, and think about the roles elected officials play in our food systems.
In the coming months, we’ll be serving up information and resources on how and where to vote, how to make sure you’re registered, who the candidates are, and questions to consider when you head to the polls. Our candidate survey results will be available after the primary election!
AFPC is a nonpartisan organization, and we take no positions on candidates or ballot measures. You won’t see us endorsing anyone or pressuring you about how you should vote. What you will see is a strong commitment to voter turnout, candidate engagement, and citizen participation across Alaska.
To kick things off, let’s run down your role in Alaska’s 2026 Primary Election!
First step – do it today: Be A Voter!
Check your voter registration status! The State Division of Elections maintains the voter rolls, and you can check your registration status here. Your voter information will show your party affiliation, your House District, and your polling place for voting on election day!
Register to vote, or update your voter information here.
The deadline to register for the Primary is July 19.
The deadline to register for the General is October 4.
Make a Plan To Vote and put it in your calendar!
You may have noticed there are a LOT of people running for various offices in Alaska! We’ll be voting on Governor/Lt. Governor, one of two U.S. Senators, our one U.S. Representative, all 40 State House seats, and 10 out of 20 State Senate seats. You can see all of the candidates here.
Statewide, we vote in a two-stage process – first is a primary election, which narrows down the pool of candidates to a maximum of four in each race. Those people then continue on to the general election in November.
How does Alaska’s Primary Election work? Alaska has a nonpartisan, top four primary election.
When you go to vote, you will get one ballot that has all of the races that you’re eligible to vote for – this is based on what Alaska House District you’re in (find it at your Voter Portal at the Division of Elections!).
Under each race on your ballot, you will see all of the candidates who have signed up to run. You’ll vote for one candidate per race. Check out what your primary ballot will look like here. On the right is the first of two sides of the House District 1 sample ballot.
Once all of the ballots are in and counted, the top four candidates in each race advance to the General Election! If there aren’t more than four candidates in a race, they will all move on to the General Election, regardless of the Primary outcome.
In the August primary, you’ll also see a single yes/no ballot measure about campaign finances. Read a recent article on this topic here. Read the ballot language from the Division of Elections webpage here.
When and Where Do I Vote In the Primary?
In-Person Absentee & Early Voting*: Begins August 3, and you can find the polling locations here.
*What’s the difference? “Absentee In-Person” is just like voting early, but these polling locations don’t have immediate, direct access to the voter registration database system. So you’ll fill out an envelope that your ballot goes into, and that later gets reviewed by the Absentee Review Board before being counted. “Early Voting” locations have access to the voter registration records, and your ballot gets scanned at the time of voting.
Absentee By-mail: “Advance remote ballots” and military/overseas ballots should have been mailed by July 4. Requested absentee by-mail ballots will start being mailed out by July 24. The deadline to request an absentee by-mail ballot is August 8. Absentee by-mail ballots must be postmarked by August 18 and received by August 28.
There are also absentee by-online and absentee by-fax options – read more at the Division of Elections website. Note that you cannot return a ballot by email!
In Person Election Day: August 18, 7am-8pm. You can find polling places here or use an interactive map here.
When Do We Find Out the Results?
The target date to certify the Primary election results is August 31. That is also the deadline for candidates to withdraw from the General Election. The Division of Elections will have unofficial primary election results here when they are available.
Stay Tuned For More on Your Food Your Vote!
We’ll continue to post information about voting and the role of Alaska’s elected officials in our food systems over the next few months. Do you have questions about the elections? Want to get involved? Reach out and let’s chat! Email advocacy@alaskafoodpolicycouncil.org
AFPC is hiring a part-time, short-term contractor to support GOTV efforts this election season! Find out more here.
