Denise Shelton was one of hundreds of Anchorage-area voters who waited in the snow Thursday to cast their ballots.

Shelton, an East Anchorage resident, waited in line for 25 minutes as the snow came down outside the Division of Elections office on Gambell Street.

Shelton said she preferred voting early to sending in an absentee ballot by mail. She wanted to vote before Election Day to avoid the Tuesday post-work rush at the polling place.

The weather Thursday wasn’t great, but who knows — it could be worse on Tuesday, she said.

Shelton is one of 45,847 Alaskans who had cast their ballots as of Wednesday at one of a dozen early voting locations across the state — two each in Anchorage and Juneau, and one each in Eagle River, Fairbanks, Wasilla, Palmer, Nome, Soldotna, Kenai and Homer.

Early voting is on track to break state records that were set in 2020, said Division of Elections Regional Director Jeff Congdon, who oversees the Anchorage office. Typically, he said, early voting begins with a rush of excited voters but then tapers off as Election Day nears.

“This year, it hasn’t really tapered off,” said Congdon. “We’ve had many many days in a row where the lines are over an hour.”

Early and absentee voting increased in popularity across the country and in Alaska in 2020, when elections were held amid the COVID-19 pandemic-era restrictions. Now, the Alaska Republican Party — which has in the past discouraged voting methods other than same-day in-person ballots — is embracing early voting, with early ballots coming disproportionately from registered Republicans.

But early voting is not distributed equally across the state. Only voters in 10 communities — or those who happen to visit those communities ahead of Election Day — can vote early. In other communities, voters can cast absentee-in-person ballots that are counted similarly to ballots received by mail.

That means that in House Districts covering Homer, Kenai, Soldotna, Eagle River, Palmer and Juneau — early voting is soaring, with turnout already exceeding 10% in some House districts. But in communities that don’t have road access to an early voting location, like Ketchikan, Kodiak, Bethel, Utqiagvik and Kotzebue — the number of early voters is counted in single digits or dozens.

As of Wednesday, only five early votes came from Alaskans who reside in Bethel and the surrounding House district; and eight votes came from the House district covering the North Slope and Northwest Arctic. The only early voting location serving the area was in Nome — a place that is hundreds of miles and multiple plane rides away from voters in those communities.

Meanwhile, in three House districts covering most of the Kenai Peninsula, where there are early voting places in Homer, Kenai and Soldotna, 6,836 people had voted early.

‘Where else is something like that acceptable?’

Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher declined an interview request. She said that absentee-in-person locations make up for the lack of early voting locations in rural parts of the state.

According to the Division of Elections’ tally from Tuesday — a week before Election Day — 71,897 Alaskans had received or submitted absentee ballots. Of those, fewer than 2,600 had been submitted and tallied at in-person locations. A total of 27,330 absentee ballots had been received by the division through all methods, including mail.

“Early voting is limited to a few locations due to the requirements for access directly to the Voter Registration System. We are required to have them at the regional offices, and we have a few more in other locations. All other locations can have absentee in-person voting two weeks ahead, if they agree to hosting it in their locations,” Beecher said in an email.

Regional Division of Elections offices are located in Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Nome, Wasilla and Kenai. Beecher did not explain why some communities without such offices — including Homer, Palmer, Eagle River and Soldotna — had been given access to early voting, while other hub communities without access to the road system had not.

The discrepancy in early voting access could have far-reaching consequences for Alaska’s statewide election. In Alaska’s highly competitive congressional race, Democratic incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola is heavily favored by rural voters, while her Republican challenger Nick Begich is favored in conservative-leaning communities such as Wasilla, Palmer and Soldotna.

In-person absentee voting locations are meant to provide an alternative to early voting, but early data indicates they are underutilized in some rural communities. In House District 40, where a pivotal state House race could determine control of the chamber, only one Kotzebue resident’s absentee-in-person ballot had been received as of Tuesday. In House District 37, which covers Bristol Bay and the Aleutian Chain, only one voter — from King Salmon — had cast an absentee ballot in person. In House District 38, no in-person absentee ballots had been counted as of Tuesday.

According to the Division of Elections, absentee in-person voting locations are available in some rural villages — but not all. In House District 40, there are absentee-in-person locations in Utqiagvik, Kotzebue, Kivalina, Noorvik, Wainwright, Deering and Prudhoe Bay. That leaves Alaska residents in some villages with two options — cast a ballot by mail, despite a history of spotty service and delays, or wait for Election Day, which has its own history of unreliable staffing in some locations, including in the August primary, when some polling locations didn’t open on time.

Michelle Sparck, director of Get Out the Native Vote, a statewide nonprofit voter education organization, said Wednesday that her goal is to eventually have an in-person early voting opportunity in every rural district, including through early absentee voting. But the state offers poll workers only $100 in compensation for volunteering two weeks at the polling location, making it difficult for villages to find willing election workers, Sparck said.

Jeremiah Angusuc, the Nome-based Division of Elections regional director, said in a brief phone interview Wednesday that there are “no concerns for me at this time in my region” with regard to staffing polling places on Election Day.

Robyn Burke, an Utqiagvik Democrat running to represent House District 40, said Wednesday that she had cast an absentee-in-person ballot on Tuesday in Utqiagvik. According to records she saw at the polling place, only 14 other people had done so.

She said that on the first day of early in-person voting, which began Oct. 21, her sister had attempted to cast an absentee ballot in Utqiagvik, only to find that the borough building, where early voting was meant to take place, was closed.

“Where else is something like that acceptable outside of rural Alaska?” said Burke. “Even in the most rural communities anywhere else in the country, there would be an uproar.”

Burke is running against Republican-turned-independent incumbent Rep. Thomas Baker of Utqiagvik, and Democrat Saima Chase of Kotzebue. The outcome of the race could prove pivotal for control of the Alaska House next year. Burke said that if some polling places on the North Slope don’t open on Election Day — the result of the race could change.

Sparck said Wednesday that her organization had trained 13 election workers that will be ready to deploy on Election Day if needed in rural communities, in case poll workers don’t show up.

“We can’t apologize for trying to be strategic and trying to be prepared, even if it steps on some protocol,” said Sparck.

But a last-minute staffing shortage could be hard to fill, said Burke. There is only one regularly scheduled flight from Anchorage to Utqiagvik, and it arrives after the regularly scheduled flights from Utqiagvik to outlying villages depart.

• • •

PHOENIX — Arizona’s secretary of state office must release a list of tens of thousands of voters who were mistakenly classified as having access to the full ballot because of a coding glitch, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled Thursday.

Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ office initially denied a public records requests for the list that was filed by America First Legal, a group run by Stephen Miller, a onetime adviser to former President Donald Trump. Fontes’ office cited concerns over the accuracy of the list and the safety of the voters included.

Judge Scott Blaney said the court received no credible evidence showing the information would be misused or encourage violence or harassment against the voters whose citizenship hasn’t been verified. Blaney set a deadline of noon Monday for Fontes’ office to release a list of 98,000 voters and information Fontes relied on when announcing in early October that even more voters had been impacted — for a total of 218,000.

Arizona is among the most closely watched states given its presidential battleground status, and both campaigns have ramped up their presence in recent weeks to court undecided voters. The coding glitch doesn’t impact federal races. But it led to a decision from the state Supreme Court in September that the misclassified voters — representing about 5% of all undecided voters — still could vote the full ballot even though officials haven’t confirmed whether they are U.S. citizens.

That number of voters could tip the scales in tight local and state races, as well as fiercely competitive ballot measures on abortion and immigration. The voters are nearly evenly registered as Democrats, Republicans or with neither of those parties.

Fontes has said he has the list of 98,000 voters but not a more expansive one despite declaring many more were affected. His office said Thursday that it’s reviewing Blaney’s decision and weighing its options.

Blaney restricted Strong Communities Foundation and its legal counsel, America First Legal, from distributing information they receive from Fontes’ office ahead of Election Day on Tuesday to anyone but county recorders, the Arizona Senate president and speaker of the Arizona House and members of the elections committee.

America First Legal’s counsel, James Rogers, said in a statement Thursday that the group is hopeful the records could be used to verify the citizenship of voters on the list.

“It is unfortunate that Secretary Fontes so aggressively opposed our common-sense efforts to help restore trust in our state’s election system,” Rogers said.

The ruling also requires Fontes’ office to release communications and data transmissions with a number of government agencies, including the Arizona Department of Transportation and Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office.

The misclassification of voters from federal-only to full-ballot voters was blamed on a glitch in state databases involving drivers’ licenses and the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division.

Arizona is unique among states in that it requires voters to prove their citizenship to participate in local and state races. Those who haven’t but have sworn to it under the penalty of law are allowed to participate only in federal elections.

The state considers drivers’ licenses issued after October 1996 to be valid proof of citizenship. However, the system coding error marked 218,000 voters who obtained licenses before 1996, mistakenly, as full-ballot voters, state officials said.

In 2023, California approved the Climate Accountability Package, a pair of bills aimed at creating climate reporting requirements. Reporting is set to begin in 2026 for data collected during 2025. Companies need to determine now if they are required to report and establish the processes to collect the data. However, delays in drafting the standards and ambiguous language are making it difficult for businesses to determine if they qualify.

The Rise of Climate Reporting

California’s climate reporting regulation is part of a global movement to require companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, climate policies, and to evaluate climate risks. Driven by the net zero 2050 goal of the Paris Agreement, jurisdictions around the world are looking to reduce GHG emissions.

The European Union has been leading the way with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. Initially adopted in 2022, the CSRD requires climate and environmental, social, and governance reporting by most companies that operate within the EU. Reporting for large companies began in 2024. Reporting for non-EU companies and small and medium-sized enterprises has been delayed to 2026.

In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted a Climate-Risk Disclosure Rule in early 2024, only to delay implementation while it faced legal challenges. California and other states are moving forward with their own reporting requirements.

California’s Climate Accountability Package established the broad parameters for the reporting standards. The responsibility of drafting specific regulations and implementing the reporting standards was delegated to the California Air Resources Board. CARB was initially given until January 1, 2025 to draft the rules and processes. In September, the Legislature extended the deadline by six months to July 1.

The original legislation states that CARB shall develop and adopt regulations requiring for the reporting entity’s prior fiscal year.” Meaning, while the reporting does not take place until 2026, the data is from 2025. Businesses must determine before January 1, 2025 if they qualify as a reporting entity so they can begin collecting the required information.

Reporting requirements are divided into two categories, based on the total annual revenue of the company. Unlike the SEC, the California reporting requirements apply to both publicly traded and privately held companies. Only U.S. companies will have to report.

Reporting Entities

The highest level of reporting is required of large companies. Senate Bill 253 required companies who do business in California and have an excess of $1 billion in revenue, defined as “reporting entities”, to submit an annual report for Scope 1 and Scope 2 starting in 2026. Scope 3 reporting will begin in 2027.

Generally, Scope 1 GHG emissions are those that come directly from the company. Scope 2 are indirect GHG emissions from the company’s power source. Scope 3 are GHG emissions from the value chain, both from suppliers and consumers.

Scope 3 has been highly debated as it is considered by the business community as being overly burdensome. When the SEC implemented their rule, they chose to not require Scope 3. The EU requires it.

Covered Entities

Senate Bill 261 required companies who do business in California and an excess of $500 million in revenue, defined as “covered entities”, to submit a biennial climate-related financial risk report.

Climate risk is defined as “material risk of harm to immediate and long-term financial outcomes due to physical and transition risks, including, but not limited to, risks to corporate operations, provision of goods and services, supply chains, employee health and safety, capital and financial investments, institutional investments, financial standing of loan recipients and borrowers, shareholder value, consumer demand, and financial markets and economic health.”

This is a much lower requirement as it does not include any level of GHG emission reporting.

What Classifies As “Doing Business in California”?

In the development and interpretation of law, words matter. Codes, ordinances, laws, and regulations typically begin with a list of definitions of key terms. Frequently, those definitions are prefaced with the phrase “for purposes of this section.” This allows lawmakers to define a term for limited use in that section of the law preventing new legislation from negatively impacting established law. Definitions bring clarity, allowing those subjected to the law, regulators, attorneys, and judges to know the exact intent of the lawmakers.

In the Climate Accountability Package, the phrases “covered entity” and “reporting entity” are both defined in their respective sections. The only notable distinction between the definitions is the annual revenue threshold. Both include the phrase “that does business in California.”

While the dollar amount thresholds are clear, there is a question as to what classifies as “doing business” in California. The definition varies by section of the state code and by state agency. The Climate Accountability Package amended the state’s Health and Safety Code, that does not have a definition of doing business.

Presumably, CARB will provide a clear definition when they release the standards in July. However, companies will need to determine by January 1 if they need to collect data. In the interim, there are two key definitions that help provide some guidance.

California Corporations Code

Section 191 (a) of the California Corporations Code gives a definition of “entering into repeated and successive transactions of its business in this state, other than interstate or foreign commerce.” However, that definition is for the phrase “transact intrastate business” and is only for “the purposes of Chapter 21”, requiring registration with the Secretary of State.

Notably, “a foreign corporation shall not be considered to be transacting intrastate business merely because its subsidiary transacts intrastate business.” This leaves raises a question as to if a subsidiary can trigger reporting by the parent company. The 2024 amendment clarified that a subsidiary does not have to file separate from the parent company, but did not address this question.

California Revenue and Taxation Code

Article 1, Section 23101(a) of the California Revenue and Taxation Code gives a definition of “doing business.” The California Franchise Tax Board interprets the definition to mean meeting one of five conditions. The board updates the dollar thresholds annually. A company is considered doing business in California if

1. The company is “actively engaging in any transaction for the purpose of financial or pecuniary gain or profit”;
2. The company is “organized or commercially domiciled” in the state;
3. The company has annual sales in California exceed the lower of $711,538 or 25% of the company’s total sales;
4. The company has real property or tangible personal property in California exceeds the lower of $71,154 or 25% of the company’s total; or
5. The company has payroll compensation in California exceeds the lower of $71,154 or 25% of the company’s total payroll.

The Struggle For Businesses

While there will likely be a delay in implementing California’s climate reporting requirements, companies have to decided soon how to respond. The choice comes with a hefty price tag. The SEC estimated compliance with their rule would cost a company approximately $1 million the first year. There is no reason to think California’s will be any different. As a result, companies are faced with a difficult decision – move forward with costly programs or hope for a delay.

There are a lot of unanswered questions while CARB drafts the climate reporting standards. However, given the current timeline, companies need to act now to evaluate if they meet the minimums and get their process in place by January 1.