Early voting for Alaska’s Aug. 20 primary began Monday, but mail delays meant ballots did not arrive on time at many polling places in rural Alaska, the director of the Alaska Department of Elections said Wednesday.

This has caused some voters in rural areas to wait to cast their ballots, and the delay has sparked heated protests from some Democrats.

Lieutenant Governor Nancy Dahlstrom, who oversees the Division of Elections, is running as the Republican candidate for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, seeking to defeat Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola.

Peltola is a native Alaskan and has secured significant support from the state’s rural Native American villages in her 2022 campaign for office.

Robyn Burke is a Democratic candidate for the Alaska State House of Representatives and attempted to cast her vote in Utqiagvik on Tuesday as she will be traveling on primary day.

She went to an early voting location, “and they gave me an application for an absentee ballot. I wanted to request an absentee ballot. And I said, ‘Don’t you have any absentee ballots?'”

As it turns out, that wasn’t the case—and neither were over a dozen other rural towns.

Burke posted on social media about the issue, sparking further comments from voters who were also concerned.

Alaska has only a handful of real early voting polling places that are set up like Election Day polling places. In smaller communities, the state distributes blank mail-in ballots and allows voters to cast their ballots “in person by mail,” which are then mailed through the regular absentee ballot process.

In places where mail delivery is often slow, this is often a faster way to vote before Election Day.

But this year, some mail-in ballots were delayed in reaching their destination. In Bethel, the ballots did not arrive until Tuesday afternoon. In Utqiagvik and Kotzebue, they arrived on Wednesday.

In total, eight communities did not receive their packages until Monday, nine on Tuesday and as of Wednesday afternoon, 14 communities were still waiting for their ballots, said department director Carol Beecher.

This number changed throughout the day as new information came in.

In some cases, bad weather was to blame for the delays. In other cases, the person who was supposed to pick up the mail at the airport didn’t answer the phone.

The towns and villages affected included Atka, Nikolski and Akutan in the Aleutian Islands, Sand Point on the Alaska Peninsula, and Shaktoolik and Koyuk on the west coast.

Burke, who has previously raised concerns about voting certification in rural Alaska, said she was concerned about the delays.

“A large portion of Mary Peltola’s electorate is Alaska Native, but we don’t have the opportunity to vote or the time frame in which we can vote is shortened. If people are turned away, who knows if they’ll come back?” she said.

Lindsay Kavanaugh, chairwoman of the Alaska Democratic Party, said she had also seen Burke’s comments and the matter was Dahlstrom’s responsibility.

“If she is unable to advocate for eligible voters to be able to vote no matter where they live in the state, it is easy to conclude that she will not be an effective advocate in Congress, especially for rural Alaskans,” Kavanaugh said.

Dahlstrom’s campaign declined to comment on the matter. Beecher, a Dahlstrom appointee, said by email that nothing unusual was going on.

“I can assure you that this had nothing to do with anything political. The (lieutenant governor) has delegated all election responsibilities and is not involved in the operations of the department. The delays are due to postal issues and some of the challenges we face in these remote locations,” she said.