Posted on 11/14/2010 11:22:24 PM PST by SeattleBruce
With the vast majority of write-in ballots counted, both Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Republican Joe Miller looked to Monday – when election officials will begin counting thousands of absentee ballots — as a key day in their U.S. Senate race.
After about 5,000 write-in ballots were counted Sunday, Murkowski kept up her success rate of winning about 89 percent of the write-in votes outright, plus an additional 8 percent of write-in votes that were challenged but still counted for the senator anyway.
However, officials still have to count about 40,000 absentee ballots this week, according to the Alaska Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai. That figure includes several thousand absentee ballots with write-in votes that have not been counted yet.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
The military absentees aren't due until Wed. 11/17. There are only about 12,000 more write-ins to count.
ping
If Murkowski isn’t on the absentees - doesn’t he only have to get 13,000 out of the 40,000 to win?
http://www.ktuu.com/news/ktuu-2010elect-senate-ballot-count-update-111410,0,1653487.story
“For the first time Sunday, Miller observers were able to snap photos of challenged ballots. Miller says he’s shocked at the votes that are being counted.
“Here’s another one that was approved apparently today, which is ‘Maryski,’” Miller said. “Another one here is an ‘M’ with a squiggle behind it, and then a whole series of ballots like ‘Murcaski.’”
+++++++++++++++++++
Let’s hope for about 5 to 7,000 of those illegal votes...
“plus an additional 8 percent of write-in votes that were challenged but still counted for the senator anyway.”
Thanks to an activist judge.
Very good news. Most of the hits against Miller came towards the end.
“Very good news.”
This is a lot more absentee ballots than I thought, or read, were outstanding. Why would it be hard to count them if they’re put through counting machines (not this write-in rubbish?) Hmmm...wonder if they’ve been holding them back in the hopes that sen. write-in could catch up with Joe (with all the psych. impact of that for the media darlings...)
Just count the real votes.
“If Murkowski isn’t on the absentees...”
According to the article, some ‘several thousand’ of the absentees are ‘write-ins’ which one would think favors murky. But the other say 37,000 absentees, if they’re not write-ins, would favor Miller (plus the other (smirk) RAT). The article says they have to count those 40,000 ‘this week’ and Miller’s campaign says they think they can gain 1,000 on murk just tomorrow. If there really are that many absentees, wouldn’t the Miller campaign be touting them more? Perhaps they haven’t checked all the absentees to see if there are other ‘write-ins’ among them - I really don’t know. But on balance - 37 or 38K absentees seems to favor Miller pretty greatly.
Ugh, I just don’t know what to believe about that 40,000 number yet from the AK elections director, nor what it means to the Miller campaign at this point.
That link is really bad. The ktuu news site is full of spyware.
Hmm...NBC TV 2 in Anchorage...
absentee ballots .Alaska
do or don’t
have a line for... write-ins
?
..........
the quoted number of absentee ballots
is
number of ballots sent out,
or
number received?
i could swear there was an article last week stating most absentee ballots had been counted already. the original number was 40,000 which included military. I can’t see why all the drama about write ins when there are all those absentee ballots still to come.
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/dispatches/politics/7504-murkowski-continues-steady-climb-in-alaska-senate-race
According to this article there are 15000 write in and 8600 absentee ballots left. They have been counting absentee ballots all along.
Murkowski isn’t on the absentee ballots, but she wasn’t on the regular ballot either, and that didn’t stop close to 40% of voters from writing her name in. I’m hoping that she will get a smaller percentage of the absentees, but she will get closer to 40% than to 0% of them.
We pretty much need a miracle here.
The Indians been conditioned for many years to be dependent on the Govt, enslaved even more than many other groups; and they think they have it good; as suicide, child abuse, alcohol, and the terrible social condition kills them off one by one, man it's sad. There were over 400 in our village a 100 years back, now around 30 remain and more are buried than being born; modern day govt genocide. Murkowski promised them all the gold they could eat and 10,000 of their votes changed the election.
The Miller campaign & many Alaskans worked awful hard to send a decent constitutionalist to D.C.; won the primary and then that filth Lisa used her corrupt friends to defy the future. Much as I'd like to see Miller pull it out, the numbers are shaky. I'm hoping for it to be close enough that it will go to court and many of the mis spelled Lisa votes will be tossed; grabbing at straws in the corrupt world of AK politics.
Just remember, the bottom is about to fall out fiscally in our govt. Maybe then, the Lisa supporters will get the message loud & clear and LIsa will have 6 years of suffering trying to keep her promises of $$$$$$$$. It pisses me right off.
This entire affair has been confusing- especially given the lack of official announcements on how many ballots are out there. Either it is a poorly run elections dept, or they are hoping Miller just gives up.
This should go down in election history as “Murkowski’s Mulligan”.
In the future, sore losers should be required to reimburse the Party all its funding before any write-in attempt. An oath of honor!
Sounds hopeless. The Ice Princess seems to have them under her spell.
The article makes it sound like Joe has this one.
I know it is a sore spot, and I’m very disappointed as well, but Joe Miller did not win enough Alaskan votes to be the next Senator. I blame the voters. Ignoring reality does not change the balance. Alaska is not as conservative as we would like to believe, nor is Colorado or Nevada for that matter. Neither was Virginia, North Carolina, nor Indiana in 2008. Fortunately most of the rest of the country is still relatively, or moderately, conservative. If the right candidates run they can win. We have to do better than Joe Miller, Ken Buck, and Sharron Angle. They represent our values but they lose elections. We need winning candidates. Note that I excluded Christine O’Donnell from the list because it is arguable whether Delaware could elect any conservative in our lifetime. That is certainly not true of Alaska, Colorado, or Nevada. We fumbled those seats away.
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