One resident of a small Alaskan island will become the last American to vote for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
Adak Island, which is closer to Russia than mainland Alaska, recorded its last in-person vote since it abolished absentee voting in the 2012 election.
Polls on the island are open from 7am to 8pm HST, meaning it will be 1am on the East Coast when the last vote is cast.
Best known as a former World War II military base and later naval station, the island is 1,200 miles southwest of Anchorage and further west than Hawaii, where polls close an hour earlier.
“People are having a little bit of fun that day because I mean, realistically, everyone knows the decision on the election long before we close,” said City Manager Layton Lockett. “But you know what, it’s still fun.”
Adak Island (pictured) off the coast of Alaska will be home to the last American to vote in the 2024 presidential election
There are US territories further west than Alaska, but there is no process in the Electoral College that allows residents of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and the US Small Outlying Islands to vote for president, according to the National Archives.
It is not known who was the last person in Adak to vote in 2020. But the island’s votes will be counted with the state of Alaska – where Donald Trump won in the last election.
The 2020 census recorded 171 residents on Adak, but Lockett said the number is now likely down to less than 50 full-time residents.
“I’m not sure who the last voter will be this year,” Adak City Clerk Jana Lekanoff said. “Maybe it will be a bit of a competition?”
In 2012, Mary Nelson was the last American to vote on election night because she was a poll worker in Adak at the time and forgot to cast her vote until just before the polls closed at 8 p.m.
‘When I got the [voting booth’s] “When the curtain came back out, the city manager took a picture of me and announced that I was the last person in Adak to vote,” she said.
“We had to count votes, and they were waiting for us in Nome to call our vote count.”
The island’s votes will be counted with the state of Alaska – where Donald Trump won in the last election
City Manager Layton Lockett said most residents wonder whether whoever wins the election will encourage the military to return to Adak
Adak Island has historical significance after its role in World War II. The US built facilities on the island after Japanese forces seized islands further west in the Aleutian Islands chain.
Troops landed in August 1942 to begin construction of an army base, and enemy planes dropped nine bombs on the island two months later.
These landed in undeveloped areas, but the landscape was littered with machine gun fire.
The Navy began building facilities in January 1943.
In May 1943, approximately 27,000 combat troops converged on Adak as a staging post to retake the nearby island of Attu from the Japanese.
After the war, the island was transferred to the air force and then to the navy in 1950.
Nearly 80,000 acres of the 180,000-acre island were set aside for Navy use, and the rest of the island remained part of what eventually became the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.
The base was closed in 1997. The Navy retains about 5,600 acres, with the rest owned by the Aleut Corp., the Alaska Native regional corporation for the area; the city of Adak, or the refuge.
In 2012, when Adak finally switched to in-person voting, Mary Nelson (pictured) was the last American to vote on election night
Best known as a former World War II military base and later naval station, the island is located 1,200 miles southwest of Anchorage
The only commercial transportation to the island is via Alaska Airlines. There is no ferry, ocean passenger service or other commercial air service to the island
Lockett said the city is going through tough times with a declining population and a lack of an economic engine. The city’s fish processing plant has closed several times over the years.
The only commercial transportation to the island is via Alaska Airlines. According to the city’s website, there is no ferry, ocean passenger service or other commercial air service to the island unless chartered.
When it comes to politics, Lockett said that in a small town it’s pretty easy to know where your neighbors fall politically, but there seems to be one goal that unites everyone.
Whoever is in power, will they try to “encourage the military to return to Adak somehow?” he said.
“We’re kind of in the middle of Adak’s future because we’re struggling,” Lockett said.