Nunapitchuk’s polls didn’t open until around 5 p.m. on Election Day, according to an Alaska Native voting group. The state Division of Elections did not immediately provide information about the circumstances behind the delay when reached by email on the evening of Aug. 18.
Ivalu Blanchett, a volunteer with advocacy group Get Out the Native Vote, had planned to fly to Nunapitchuk to assist Elders and others unable to make it in-person to the polls. But her flight from Bethel early on the morning of the election was cancelled.
"When I was contacting my aunt that lives in Nunapitchuk that I was unable to make it, she told me that there basically was nowhere to vote at that time, and it was about 11:00 a.m.," Blanchett said.
Blanchett said an election worker told her that bad weather in Nunapitchuk may have played a part in delaying election materials that had to be shuttled across the river that bisects the community.
Get Out the Native Vote Director Michelle Sparck said she sees Nunapitchuk’s late poll opening as evidence of a longer-term failure by the Division of Elections to provide safeguards when hiring poll workers in rural communities.
"If you're just relying on one person, people get sick, people end up having to be medevaced, people end up leaving for a job, and then a community is left helpless while these families try to find coverage for them," Sparck said.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many poll workers had been hired in Nunapitchuk. Sparck said the issue in Nunapitchuk is part of a pattern that can feed voter apathy in rural Alaska. In 2024, primary polling locations in Kaktovik and Wales failed to open at all. In 2022, primary polling places in Tununak and Atmautluak also failed to open.
There are 343 voters registered in Nunapitchuk.
