After final ballots counted, Juneau election turnout still only 19 percent

Election workers count absentee and question ballots on Friday in CBJ Assembly chambers. Photo by Rosemarie Alexander/ KTOO.

Juneau’s Canvass Review Board will certify municipal election results on Tuesday.

Even with absentee and question ballots added in, turnout for the Oct. 1st election was only 19 percent, the lowest in more than 30 years.

The outstanding ballots were counted on Friday, increasing candidate totals but not changing the outcome.

Kate Troll defeated Bill Peters by 525 votes for the Areawide Assembly seat that has been held for the last nine years by Johann Dybdahl.

Troll had 2,515 votes to Peters’ 1,990 votes.  During the final count, she gained 649 and Peters gained 419 votes.

Troll was in Assembly chambers Friday as election workers ran the 1,097 absentee and question ballots through the AccuVote machines.

This is her second foray into local politics.  She was elected to the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly in the 1980s, and is familiar with the homework members have to do.

She says that experience taught her to be a good listener.

“When you go into a meeting, remain open-minded. I found that I would come into a meeting thinking ‘this is the way I’m going to vote,’ but listening to the other Assembly people and particularly the public comment I found oftentimes changed the way I voted, and I anticipate that to be the same,” Troll says.

She says she’ll be a team player on the Juneau Assembly and knows she got there because of team work.

“I would like to thank my volunteers.  It takes a team effort to win and it takes a team effort to govern.”

Troll will be sworn into office at the next regular Assembly meeting on Oct. 14.  Assembly members Karen Crane and Mary Becker, who ran unopposed, will be sworn in for a second term.

School board members Barbara Thurston and Lisa Worl also were unopposed for their seats and will be sworn in on Oct. 15.

Sign up for The Signal

Top Alaska stories delivered to your inbox every week

Site notifications
Update notification options
Subscribe to notifications