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North Slope mayor race goes to run off

October 7th 5:05 pm | Carey Restino Print this article   Email this article   Create a Shortlink for this article

Voters likely aren't done choosing a mayor in the North Slope Borough race. In coming weeks, they will almost certainly have to head back to the polls to decide who will take the mayor seat at the top of the world, but who will be on that ballot is too close to call yet.

Candidate Charlotte Brower was leading the group of five candidates, as well as the strong write-in campaign by Fenton Rexford. Brower had 559 votes as of Tuesday night, with Point Lay and its 116 registered voters not yet reporting. Following Brower was George Ahmaogak, former borough mayor, who had garnered 535 votes in the race. Ahmaogak had lead a strong race, raising more campaign fund than any other candidate, but his campaign was rocked less than two weeks before the election by the indictment of his wife on charges that she embezzled close to a half-million dollars from the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission.

Forrest "Deano" Olemaun earned 211 votes while Ned Arey received 102. Charlie took 49 votes in the race.

Perhaps the biggest unknown at this point is how many of the 543 write-in votes were cast for Rexford. If all the write-ins go to Rexford, it would put his name on the ballot against Brower based on current numbers. But with less than 10 votes separating write-in ballots and Ahmaogak, it was still far too close to tell. Absentee ballot counts as well as questioned ballots have yet to be factored in as well.

Brower, a human resources director, ran an unsuccessful campaign against outgoing Mayor Edward Itta in 2005, though she garnered enough votes to call for a runoff election in that race as well.

Rexford, a whaling captain and North Slope Borough assemblyman, is the former mayor of Kaktovik. His campaign hit a glitch when paperwork for the election did not get postmarked in time to put his name on the ballot. But Alaska, and the arctic, seems to have write-in fever in recent years, with several candidates, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, launching successful write-in campaigns.

In Alaska, any race in which no candidate receives over 40 percent of the votes for mayor, governing body or school board seat goes to a runoff election. Unless otherwise stated, the runoff election is held within three weeks of the date of certification of the election for which a runoff is required. The runoff is between the two candidates receiving the greatest number of votes for the seat.

 

Carey Restino can be reached at news@reportalaska.com

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