Digital Bob Archive

Alaska Elections, VII: For its first eleven biennial sessions, from 1913 to 1933, inclusive, the Alaska Territorial Legislature convened on the first Monday of March and finished around the first of May. Many early legislators were placer miners and would have preferred sessions earlier in the year, but in the days of slow mail it often took nearly four months for all of the ballots to reach Juneau for canvassing. It was not until 1934 that the General Election was moved to the second Tuesday of September, with the Legislature convening on the second Monday of January in 1935.

The new election date brought complaints from fishermen, placer miners and others who worked away from home during the summers and in 1946 it was shifted to the second Tuesday of October. In its November elections, Alaska voters had closely followed the national trend. The September and October Alaska elections gave the Territory a unique position as weathervane for the political winds of the country as a whole and the old adage about Maine was revised to read, \"As Alaska goes, so goes the Nation.\" Membership in the Alaska House, in particular, usually reflected party status in Washington. Of the 16 members, in 1919 under Wilson there were 12 Democrats, but in 1921, when Harding took office, there were 13 Republicans. Republican majorities continued through the 1920s, but in the New Deal years the Democrats moved ahead. In 1939 and 1943, in fact, there were no Republicans in the Alaska House.

With the coming of statehood, Alaska returned to holding its General Elections in November, with the first one on November 26, 1958. It took a long time, however, for the Legislature to find a satisfactory date to convene. After opening on the second Monday of January, in 1941 the Legislature convened on the fourth Monday of the year, and it continued using that starting date until 1970.
Then it moved back to the second Monday until 1974 and 1975 when it convened on the third Monday. A law enacted in 1975 set the second Monday as the day to convene except for the first session after a gubernatorial election, when it convenes on the third Monday of the year.

Chapter 1 of the laws of the First Territorial Legislature, 1913, gave women the vote. Chapter 1 of the laws of the 17th Territorial Legislature, 1945, attempted to give it to 18-year-olds. That law, however, did not receive the necessary validation by Congress and the voting age was not lowered until after statehood. New election laws after 1959 generally increased the electorate and made it easier to vote but made it more difficult for candidates to get on the ballot. The residency requirement for voters was reduced from one year to 30 days and absentee voting was eased. Counting the ballots was vastly speeded up by punch-card ballots. Much more was required of candidates, however, under the Alaska Public Offices Commission and other new post-statehood election laws.