Mat-Su School Board race and term-length vote too close to call before certification

A week after the Nov. 3 election, a Mat-Su School Board seat is separated by 83 votes, and a proposal to lengthen School Board terms leads by 245, with up to about 6,000 ballots that weren't in the borough's latest count.

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly is set to certify the results at a special meeting Nov. 17, after a canvass board reports on the absentee, questioned and other ballots, according to the meeting agenda. Newly elected officials take office Nov. 23.

In School Board District 6, Jesse M. Sumner has 2,223 votes to R. Ole Larson's 2,140 in the borough's unofficial results, with 101 write-ins.

Proposition A, which would change School Board terms from three years to four and line them up with Assembly terms, leads 17,489 to 17,244.

Those results, posted the day after the election, count 35,686 votes cast at the polls and in early voting, about 36% of the borough's 98,738 registered voters. They don't include 4,845 absentee ballots the borough issued, 1,089 questioned ballots or 39 special needs ballots. Mailed ballots had to be postmarked by Election Day and reach the clerk's office within three days.

Under borough code, the canvass board decides which of those ballots count and checks each precinct's results. The Assembly must then certify the election unless it orders an investigation or someone has already filed a contest.

Other results are clearer. Voters rejected Proposition C, which would have paired the borough's first areawide sales tax, 1%, with a $75,000 property tax exemption for homes their owners live in. It trails 12,044 to 22,455, a gap larger than the number of uncounted ballots.

A 5% tax on alcohol trails 15,129 to 20,187, and a measure giving the borough areawide power to build roads, streets, sidewalks and drainage trails 15,709 to 18,688. Even if every outstanding ballot counted, supporters would need about 92% of them to pass the alcohol tax and about 75% to pass the road measure.

Four of the Assembly's seven seats were on the ballot, for four-year terms. In District 1, Thomas E. Bergey leads with 3,337 votes to Michelle Heun's 2,275 and Chris Chiavetta's 651. In District 2, Philip Licht Jr. leads with 2,523 to Scott M. Lindbloom's 1,637 and Dana Raffaniello's 1,092. They would replace Assembly members Michael Bowles and Stephanie Nowers. Maxwell Sumner in District 4 and Bill Gamble in District 5 ran unopposed for new terms, and Kathy McCollum was unopposed for School Board District 3.