At some point between the 2000 and 2004 elections, Alaska went from having 40 'election districts' to just 4. Dave already has maps of Alaska's results for 1992-2000, but not for 2004. I was wondering if anybody could find a map of these four new districts.
The 40 "election districts" are the state representative districts. These are simply collections of precincts used for electing representatives. They are not permanent and could change by decade.
In Alaska, the Division of Elections is under the Lt.Governor (rather than the Secretary of State as in many states).
Division of Elections The 2004 election results are here, with an index to the results for each representative district.
2004 results by districtCurrent district mapsSenate districs are lettered, and there are two representative districts per senate district, so something like 1-A is Representative District 1 (and also a part of Senate District A.
Alaska's judicial system is divided into 4 judicial districts, but I don't think this is what you want.
Judicial Districts There are 4 election regions (under the statewide Division of Elections). They appear to be fairly new, and perhaps only related to compliance with the federal HAVA act - that is where I found them on the DoE site. Other than the location of the 4 regional offices (Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, and Nome) the only breakout by "region" was in the registration statistics.
Registration StatisticsHere the statistics are gathered by precinct within representative districts, with summary totals for each region.
Region I - (1-5) Pacific Coast: Panhandle, Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak Island, western short ok Cook Inlet.
Region II (13-32) Anchorage and areas to the fairly immediate north.
Region III (6-12) Interior, 3 districts are in immediate Fairbanks area, and others come in close.
Region IV (37-40) Arctic Coast: North Slope south to include Aleutians.
In
general, counties administer state law (issuing licenses for the state, maintaining property records, administering justice (sheriff and courts), conducting elections. In many areas, the HQ building for a county is known as the
courthouse. County officials are usually locally elected.
Over time, counties in some states have been given the authority to provide various services (roads, libraries, fire protection, water, planning and zoning, etc.)
In the continental US, the ideal size for a county was considered to be small enough that a resident could travel to the county seat, do his business at the court house, and get back to his farm before nightfall. As you get further west, this ideal was less likely to be met as population density decreased (or by the time counties were organized automobiles were becoming available).
In Alaska, because of its huge areas, it wouldn't make sense to have counties. So they don't in some areas there are boroughs and cities, but they don't provide complete coverage of the state. Many activities that are provided by counties elsewhere, are provided directly by the state, though of course through local offices.