The last in-person vote in the US will be cast on the desolate tundra of Alaskas Aleutian Islands

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — On a desolate slab of island tundra in western Alaska, a resident of Adak will again become the last American to cast an in-person ballot for president, continuing a 12-year tradition for the nation’s westernmost community.The honor of having the last voter in the nation fell to Adak when they did away with absentee-only voting for the 2012 election and added in-person voting.“People have a little bit of fun on that day because, I mean, realistically everybody knows the election’s decided way before we’re closed,” said city manager Layton Lockett.“But, you know, it’s still fun.”When polls close in Adak, it’s 1 a.m.

on the East Coast.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.The island best known as a former World War II military base and later naval station is 1,200 miles southwest of Anchorage and further west than Hawaii, where polls close an hour earlier.Mary Nelson said Republican Mitt Romney was likely conceding the 2012 race to President Barack Obama on election night when she became Adak’s first last voter in a presidential election, although she didn’t know Obama had been reelected until the next morning when she turned on her computer to read election results.Nelson, who now lives in Washington state, recalled to The Associated Press by telephone that 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.“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,” she said.There are US territories farther west than Alaska, but there’s no process in ...