The Alaska Division of Elections is using a new tool this year in an attempt to avoid the kinds of ballot-counting problems that have occurred during previous elections.

Enclosed in the bright red and green paperwork bags sent to every remote polling station is a small, black tracking device that will allow workers to trace the location of each precinct’s ballots as they travel across the state and on to Juneau for final counting.

That’s an important change, because ballots have occasionally been delayed during their return voyage through the mail, causing elections officials to postpone certification.

Two years ago, ballots from seven rural precincts were so badly delayed during the special election to replace Rep. Don Young that they couldn’t be included in the second and third counts in the state’s first-ever ranked choice election.

“We’re hoping that with these tracking tags that we have in there, we can see if it’s an issue of the precinct workers not mailing it soon enough, or if it is sitting in one of the post offices,” said Carol Beecher, director of the Alaska Division of Elections.

“If we are able to find that it’s sitting in a post office, then the post office has been working closely with us. We meet with them regularly, and we would be able to track that down a lot quicker,” she said.

Ahead of the state’s Aug. 20 primary election, the trackers were included in packages sent to all 131 polling stations where ballots are still counted by hand on Election Day. The state has 402 polling stations altogether.

The trackers are based on cellphone service, so they don’t function in all parts of Alaska, but they’re a step above what was previously available.

Elections officials said the idea for the trackers came from Apple’s AirTag system, but Apple has a limit of 16 AirTags per user ID, which wasn’t workable, election workers said.

That meant searching for a different commercial provider. The testing process wasn’t finished in time for the 2022 election, which delayed implementation until this year.

• James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. This article originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.