Fairbanks votes Oct. 6 on capping taxes, moving elections and hand counts

Fairbanks North Star Borough voters decide three citizen initiatives on Oct. 6: whether to cap borough tax revenue, whether to move municipal elections from October to November, and whether to count ballots by hand instead of by machine. If any of them passes, the borough's pamphlet says neither the Assembly nor the voters can repeal, modify or negate it for two years.

Proposition 1 would hold borough tax revenue to the previous year's amount plus Fairbanks inflation, with exceptions for new construction, bonds, voter-approved services, judgments and emergencies. A cap already exists. The difference is that the Assembly can modify or negate the current one, and this would lock it.

Proposition 2 would move the election to November and adjust the mailed absentee deadline around Veterans Day. The Assembly, in a factual statement adopted July 23, says it does not expect savings, could lose the costs it now shares with Fairbanks and North Pole if those cities keep October elections, and would face one-time equipment costs because it currently uses state equipment at no charge. The initiative's sponsors have not published a cost estimate of their own.

Proposition 3 would require hand counts by registered borough voters and prohibit electronic tabulation starting in 2027. It follows a 2025 audit in which a hand count of borough ballots matched the results the electronic tabulators produced. The sponsors read that as evidence hand counting works, and argue in the ordinance that the Matanuska-Susitna Borough "has demonstrated that requiring manual hand counting of ballots can result in cost savings." Borough Mayor Grier Hopkins and other officials read the same audit as evidence the machines are accurate, and say a full hand count would cost more and introduce more error. The Assembly's Aug. 20 statement says unofficial results would take longer while official results would arrive on about the same schedule either way, and that the initiative carries no fiscal analysis. Neither side has put a figure on what hand counting would cost.

The same ballot fills Assembly seats D, E and H, school board seats E, F and G, and two Interior Gas Utility board seats. Fairbanks and North Pole council races are on separate city ballots.

Early voting runs Sept. 21 through Oct. 1 at Noel Wien Library, which takes absentee in-person votes Oct. 2 and Oct. 5. The Fairbanks and North Pole clerks' offices take them weekdays through Oct. 5. Applications to vote by mail are due Sept. 29.