Update, 3:20 p.m.:
Partial vote in from Southeast and the Kenai Peninsula, with Murkowki picking up 2 votes on Miller.
Miller leads by 1,292 votes. But that’s with only about 1,300 votes coming in from Southeast and the Kenai so far, out of over 5,000 supposed to be counted today.
Nearly half of the tally in from southeast and the Kenai was for the Democratic primary, so there were only about 700 votes affecting the Miller-Murkowski race in the Republican primary.
The ballots just counted from Juneau and Kenai were questioned ballots. We’re still waiting for the absentees from those areas.
Also waiting on first results of questioned and absentee ballots from Fairbanks.
So far, about 9,000 additional ballots have been counted today.
Update, 4:22 p.m.:
Lisa Murkowski just slightly narrowed Joe Miller’s lead down to 1,210 votes with a new batch of absentee votes in from Southeast Alaska, the Kenai Peninsula and Fairbanks. Murkowski is going to have to start cutting into the lead by a far bigger margin soon or she’s going to be out.
The latest batch included 3,162 absentee votes. The Division of Elections has counted nearly 13,000 votes today, 9,000 of which have been Republican primary votes that impact the Miller-Murkowski race. Murkowski cut Miller’s lead down from 1,668 votes to 1,210 votes in that time.
About 3,000 more votes are expected today from Southeast Alaska, the Kenai Peninsula and the Fairbanks area.
The Division of Elections will have an additional roughly 9,000 votes to process for counts on Friday and Sept. 8. The number isn’t firm because some more absentees are likely to come in and some votes will be disqualified. Also, not all those votes will be for the Republican primary.