Borough assembly added post-election manual verification for borough ballots, clerk tells poll workers

The Fairbanks North Star Borough assembly has adopted an ordinance establishing a post-election manual verification process for borough ballots, the borough clerk told local election workers during an all-day training session. "The assembly adopted an ordinance to do a manual verification," April Trickey said, describing the new check as a post-audit to confirm tabulator accuracy.

Under the procedure as described by Trickey, the canvass board will randomly select one contested race from ballots cast at the early vote station for a hand count and will then draw two precincts at random for a similar hand count of a randomly selected contested race in each precinct. Trickey described a lottery-style selection: contest races are placed in a pool and precincts are drawn and then contests are drawn from those precincts; the same race could be selected more than once by chance.

Trickey said the manual verification covers borough ballots only and not city ballots because the cities did not change their code. The purpose, she said, is to verify that tabulators are counting correctly; if the post-count margins exceed a specified threshold the manual-audit code requires further hand counts and procedures set out in borough code and the ordinance materials.

The clerk urged poll workers to keep materials and logs intact so the canvass board can perform the required checks after election night. She also encouraged anyone with questions about the process to call the clerk’s office or consult the printed FAQs in their training packet.

The training transcript includes the procedural description but does not include the ordinance text, a number, or the assembly vote tally. The clerk said details and FAQs are available on the clerk’s website and in the worker manual.