By BARBARA HANEY
April 24, 2026 – Fairbanks North Star Borough residents expect good value from their tax dollars. A citizen petition now circulating asks the Borough to switch to hand-counted paper ballots. When you look at the numbers, the case is straightforward — and it raises a question about who benefits from our election spending: our neighbors and local workers, or an out-of-state vendor.
What we’re paying now — and where that money goes
The FNSB owns its Dominion voting machines, but the bills keep coming and the money keeps leaving Fairbanks.
Every year, the Borough pays $41,000 to $44,000 for software licensing, programming, warranties, and technical support. Over five years, that’s roughly $219,000 sent outside the borough. In 2022, after the state stopped lending equipment, FNSB spent another $217,000 on new precinct tabulators, accessories, and setup. Earlier purchases in 2020 pushed capital costs into the hundreds of thousands. The machines require climate-controlled storage, security, and year-round maintenance.
A proposed Elections and Records Center to house this equipment has been estimated at several hundred thousand to $2.5 million.
Day-to-day costs add up too: hauling heavy machines to every polling location, pre-election testing, training 200 to 250 poll workers, ballot stock, and post-election audits. All of it comes from the General Fund — your property taxes — with a significant portion flowing straight out of the borough.
Hand counting changes that equation. Worker wages go to local residents. There are no licensing fees, no vendor contracts, no out-of-state corporation taking a cut of our election budget.
What Mat-Su did
Mat-Su Borough was paying $72,257 per year to lease Dominion machines. In 2022 they ended that contract. Starting in 2023, they required full hand-counting in public view.
Dropping the lease produced immediate savings. Hand counting does require more workers — the Mat-Su clerk has said so directly — but those wages stay in the community. Mat-Su handled the workload by splitting staff into two teams: one runs the polls, a second counts ballots after closing. In borough-only elections, results came in within hours.
The full cost comparison is still being worked out, and we won’t claim otherwise. But the direction is clear: you trade a recurring out-of-state vendor contract for local labor costs you control.
This is already Alaska law — and already happening
Hand counting isn’t a fringe proposal. It’s written into Alaska statute.
AS 15.15.350 explicitly recognizes hand-count precincts and requires that ballots be counted in public, with watchers able to see each ballot as it is opened and read. The legislature built hand counting into the law as a standard method, not a fallback.
It’s already in use across the state. More than a quarter of Alaska’s 402 voting precincts currently hand count their Election Day results. These aren’t struggling precincts — they’re functioning communities that count ballots the straightforward way and get it right. FNSB wouldn’t be doing something untested. It would be joining what over 100 Alaska precincts already do every election. The Kenai Peninsula Borough is now considering the same switch, following Mat-Su’s lead.
Can the public verify the results?
After the 2025 FNSB election, researcher Edward Solomon studied the official digital record of every ballot counted by the Dominion machines. Using the unopposed Assembly Seat B race as a neutral baseline, he examined how ballots from different partisan groups were ordered and processed across multiple races.
What he found was unusual. Voters who leaned one direction and voters who leaned the other moved in near-perfect sync throughout the count — like two lines on a graph mirroring each other too precisely to look natural. In a real election, with thousands of people voting at different times and locations, you wouldn’t expect that pattern. When Solomon reshuffled the ballots while preserving the partisan breakdown, the pattern disappeared — pointing to the order the machines processed ballots, not the votes themselves.
This does not prove any votes were changed. But it raises a fair question: if something looks off in the machine data, can residents actually check the work? With proprietary software, the honest answer is no. Most residents and elected officials have no practical way to independently verify what the machines did.
Which brings us to FNSB’s own post-election audit. Hand counters checked the machine totals across early voting and two precincts — and matched them exactly. The Borough’s official position is that this proves the machines work. But consider what that argument actually concedes: the only way to verify the machines is to count the ballots by hand. If hand counting is the check on the machines, and hand counting works — what exactly are the machines for?
The objections
Won’t it cost more? Hand counting requires more workers. But those workers are paid with money that stays in Fairbanks. Vendor contracts and licensing fees leave the borough and don’t come back. The question isn’t whether hand counting costs something — everything does. The question is whether we’d rather pay our neighbors or pay Dominion.
Won’t it take longer? Mat-Su uses a two-team model and gets results the same night. FNSB already employs hundreds of poll workers. Organizing two shifts is a scheduling question, not a serious obstacle.
Is it accurate enough? Alaska statute requires hand counts be conducted in public with party observers watching every ballot. FNSB’s own audit proved they match machine totals. More than a quarter of Alaska precincts hand count every election without issue.
The bottom line
Every dollar spent on Dominion contracts and machine storage leaves this borough. Every dollar spent on local election workers stays here. We already use paper ballots. The only question is whether we need vendor contracts and a potential multi-million-dollar storage facility to count them — when the alternative is cheaper, transparent, and already working in boroughs across Alaska.
Alaska law permits it. Over 100 Alaska precincts already do it. Mat-Su showed it works. Fairbanks should do the math.
Sign the petition and contact your Assembly members. Our ballots and our budget deserve better.
Barbara Haney, Ph.D., is an independent economist with a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and more than 34 years analyzing issues unique to Alaska’s economy.
Home » Hand-counting ballots in the FNSB would save taxpayers real money — just ask Mat-Su
Hand-counting ballots in the FNSB would save taxpayers real money — just ask Mat-Su
By BARBARA HANEY
April 24, 2026 – Fairbanks North Star Borough residents expect good value from their tax dollars. A citizen petition now circulating asks the Borough to switch to hand-counted paper ballots. When you look at the numbers, the case is straightforward — and it raises a question about who benefits from our election spending: our neighbors and local workers, or an out-of-state vendor.
What we’re paying now — and where that money goes
The FNSB owns its Dominion voting machines, but the bills keep coming and the money keeps leaving Fairbanks.
Every year, the Borough pays $41,000 to $44,000 for software licensing, programming, warranties, and technical support. Over five years, that’s roughly $219,000 sent outside the borough. In 2022, after the state stopped lending equipment, FNSB spent another $217,000 on new precinct tabulators, accessories, and setup. Earlier purchases in 2020 pushed capital costs into the hundreds of thousands. The machines require climate-controlled storage, security, and year-round maintenance.
A proposed Elections and Records Center to house this equipment has been estimated at several hundred thousand to $2.5 million.
Day-to-day costs add up too: hauling heavy machines to every polling location, pre-election testing, training 200 to 250 poll workers, ballot stock, and post-election audits. All of it comes from the General Fund — your property taxes — with a significant portion flowing straight out of the borough.
Hand counting changes that equation. Worker wages go to local residents. There are no licensing fees, no vendor contracts, no out-of-state corporation taking a cut of our election budget.
What Mat-Su did
Mat-Su Borough was paying $72,257 per year to lease Dominion machines. In 2022 they ended that contract. Starting in 2023, they required full hand-counting in public view.
Dropping the lease produced immediate savings. Hand counting does require more workers — the Mat-Su clerk has said so directly — but those wages stay in the community. Mat-Su handled the workload by splitting staff into two teams: one runs the polls, a second counts ballots after closing. In borough-only elections, results came in within hours.
The full cost comparison is still being worked out, and we won’t claim otherwise. But the direction is clear: you trade a recurring out-of-state vendor contract for local labor costs you control.
This is already Alaska law — and already happening
Hand counting isn’t a fringe proposal. It’s written into Alaska statute.
AS 15.15.350 explicitly recognizes hand-count precincts and requires that ballots be counted in public, with watchers able to see each ballot as it is opened and read. The legislature built hand counting into the law as a standard method, not a fallback.
It’s already in use across the state. More than a quarter of Alaska’s 402 voting precincts currently hand count their Election Day results. These aren’t struggling precincts — they’re functioning communities that count ballots the straightforward way and get it right. FNSB wouldn’t be doing something untested. It would be joining what over 100 Alaska precincts already do every election. The Kenai Peninsula Borough is now considering the same switch, following Mat-Su’s lead.
Can the public verify the results?
After the 2025 FNSB election, researcher Edward Solomon studied the official digital record of every ballot counted by the Dominion machines. Using the unopposed Assembly Seat B race as a neutral baseline, he examined how ballots from different partisan groups were ordered and processed across multiple races.
What he found was unusual. Voters who leaned one direction and voters who leaned the other moved in near-perfect sync throughout the count — like two lines on a graph mirroring each other too precisely to look natural. In a real election, with thousands of people voting at different times and locations, you wouldn’t expect that pattern. When Solomon reshuffled the ballots while preserving the partisan breakdown, the pattern disappeared — pointing to the order the machines processed ballots, not the votes themselves.
This does not prove any votes were changed. But it raises a fair question: if something looks off in the machine data, can residents actually check the work? With proprietary software, the honest answer is no. Most residents and elected officials have no practical way to independently verify what the machines did.
Which brings us to FNSB’s own post-election audit. Hand counters checked the machine totals across early voting and two precincts — and matched them exactly. The Borough’s official position is that this proves the machines work. But consider what that argument actually concedes: the only way to verify the machines is to count the ballots by hand. If hand counting is the check on the machines, and hand counting works — what exactly are the machines for?
The objections
Won’t it cost more? Hand counting requires more workers. But those workers are paid with money that stays in Fairbanks. Vendor contracts and licensing fees leave the borough and don’t come back. The question isn’t whether hand counting costs something — everything does. The question is whether we’d rather pay our neighbors or pay Dominion.
Won’t it take longer? Mat-Su uses a two-team model and gets results the same night. FNSB already employs hundreds of poll workers. Organizing two shifts is a scheduling question, not a serious obstacle.
Is it accurate enough? Alaska statute requires hand counts be conducted in public with party observers watching every ballot. FNSB’s own audit proved they match machine totals. More than a quarter of Alaska precincts hand count every election without issue.
The bottom line
Every dollar spent on Dominion contracts and machine storage leaves this borough. Every dollar spent on local election workers stays here. We already use paper ballots. The only question is whether we need vendor contracts and a potential multi-million-dollar storage facility to count them — when the alternative is cheaper, transparent, and already working in boroughs across Alaska.
Alaska law permits it. Over 100 Alaska precincts already do it. Mat-Su showed it works. Fairbanks should do the math.
Sign the petition and contact your Assembly members. Our ballots and our budget deserve better.
Barbara Haney, Ph.D., is an independent economist with a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and more than 34 years analyzing issues unique to Alaska’s economy.
Barbara Haney: SB 259, critical property tax relief for Fairbanks families, is one vote away
Barbara Haney: Locking Alaska’s wildlife resources in a legislative straitjacket will harm rural Alaskans
Latest Post
State of Alaska employees donate to Democrats
By SUZANNE DOWNING April 24, 2026 – Federal campaign finance data analyzed by Open Secrets
Federal workforce falls to lowest level since 1960s following cuts since Trump election
By SUZANNE DOWNING April 24, 2026 – The size of the federal civilian workforce
Alaska’s ranked-choice voting has a write-in wrinkle few voters understand
By SUZANNE DOWNING April 24, 2026 – Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system was sold to voters
Comments