DCRA launches weekly election tutorials for Alaska municipal clerks ahead of Oct. 6 municipal election

Alaska municipal clerks face a series of statutory deadlines before the Oct. 6, 2026, municipal election, and the state's Division of Community and Regional Affairs is running a weekly Zoom tutorial series to help them meet each one.

Local Government Specialist Sonya Pevan and Brendan Smyth led Thursday's session on preparing voting documentation. Pevan and Iura Leahu will cover voting types on July 16. Pevan and Breanna Armstrong will lead hand-count judge training on July 23. Trish Gilliland and Pevan will take up canvass board preparation and election certification on July 30. Pevan closes the election portion of the series with an elections check-in on Aug. 27.

Key dates for clerks. Voter registration closes Sept. 6, and the Division of Elections has a five-day window after that cutoff to update voter rolls, targeting Sept. 12. Clerks must customize the DCRA election calendar template to their own municipal code, because Alaska's small and rural jurisdictions operate under local ordinances layered on top of Title 29.

Participants can provide feedback on previous tutorials or request future topics through links DCRA circulates with each session announcement. Municipal clerks who need the Zoom link or the calendar template can contact their local government specialist through DCRA's online locator.