A RESIDENT of a remote island that is closer to Russia than America will be the last person to vote in the elections following a decade-old tradition.

The honor of having the last voter in the nation fell to Adak – a small island near Alaska when locals decided to end absentee-only voting and added in-person voting during the 2012 election.

AP

Mary Nelson became the first last voter in a presidential election[/caption]

Adak Island, midway in the Aleutian Island chain and bordered by the Bering Sea to the north and the North Pacific Ocean to the south, is closer to Russia than mainland Alaska.

It was in 2012 when Mary Nelson became the first last voter in a presidential election.

Nelson, who now lives in Washington state said she was a poll worker in Adak at the time and had forgotten to vote until just before the 8 p.m. poll closing time.

She said Republican Mitt Romney was likely conceding the election race to President Barack Obama when she cast her vote.

Although she didn’t know Obama had been re-elected until the next morning when she turned on her computer to read the election results.

“When I opened the [voting booth’s] curtain to come back out, the city manager took my picture and announced that I was the last person in Adak to vote,” she said.

“That was also the end of the celebration since they still had work to do. We had votes to count, and they were waiting for us in Nome to call with our vote count.”

There are U.S. territories farther west than Alaska, but there’s no process in the Electoral College to allow residents in Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands to vote for president, according to the National Archives.

“People have a little bit of fun on that day because, I mean, realistically everybody knows the elections decided way before were closed,” said city manager Layton Lockett.

Adak Island has historical significance for its role in World War II. The U.S. built facilities on the island after Japanese forces took islands farther west in the Aleutian chain.

Troops landed in August 1942 to begin building an Army base, and enemy planes dropped nine bombs on the island two months later, but in undeveloped areas, and riddled the landscape with machine gun fire. The Navy began building facilities in January 1943.

In May 1943, about 27,000 combat troops gathered on Adak as a staging point to retake nearby Attu Island from the Japanese.

Among famous Americans stationed at Adak were writers Dashiell Hammett and Gore Vidal. The island also played host to President Franklin Roosevelt, boxing champion Joe Lewis and several Hollywood stars, according to the Adak Historical Society.

After the war, When the base was active, there were about 6,000 residents on Adak Island.

The 2020 Census counted 171 residents. Lockett says that’s probably now down to below 50 full-time residents.

When it comes to politics, Lockett said it’s pretty easy in a small town to know where your neighbours fall politically, but there seems to be one goal that unites everyone.

“Whoever is in office, are they going to try to encourage the military to come back to Adak in some way, shape or form?” he said.

“We’re kind of in that great midst of, what next for Adak, because were struggling.”