Live Feed of Alaska Write-in Count (Mispellings common)

http://www.360north.org/livefeed.php ^ | 11/10/2010 | None

[dennisw]

Most of the misspelled ballots comes from Indian tribes. It is racist to not accept misspellings from them even though MurKow’s people have been coaching them for weeks and handing out plastic bracelets w her name on them (/sarcasm)

[af_vet_rr]

If anybody else has updated numbers, please post them. I've been kind of following things, and I've read that Miller's campaign needs to disqualify between 11-12% of the write-ins for Murkowski, but they are only challenging 9.8 - 9.9% of the Murkowski write-ins.

That doesn't make sense. If you need to disqualify 11%, it seems like you should be challenging a lot more than 10%, like well north of 15%.

[no dems]

“We have a number of instances where the Alaska courts have weighed in on this issue in favor of not disenfranchising voters.”

THEY WERE NOT FRIGGIN' DISENFRANCHISED. THEY VOTED. CAN'T HELP IT IF THEY'RE TO STUPID TO VOTE CORRECTLY.

[gogeo]

I am 100% for Miller here, but if the law of the land is intent of the voter, it is pretty clear they intended their vote to go to the Senator...

Law of what land? Alaska?

Alaska says fill in the oval, mane spelled correctly...

[gogeo]

I’m not a lawyer but throwing out votes less than perfect spelling is offensive to me. This is common sense. “Mercowski” or “Mircowski” is obviously an attempt to spell Lisa’s last name. There’s no gray area to me...

So...

---The law gets tossed out because it's not a gray area to you?

---The law gets ignored because it's not a gray area to you?

How does this work in the real world?

[af_vet_rr]

Law of what land? Alaska?

Alaska says fill in the oval, mane spelled correctly...

Uhhh, Miller's lawsuits were filed in federal court.

[gogeo]

Uhhh, Miller's lawsuits were filed in federal court...

You obviously think that means something...what do you think it means?

[af_vet_rr]

You were talking about the state of Alaska. Joe Miller's lawsuit or lawsuits were filed at the federal level. Obviously Miller does not agree with how the state of Alaska is handling things, or he is trying to skip ahead a few steps and bypass the local and state judges. It's probably a smart move on his part.

One thing I still don't understand, and my math maybe off, but Miller's people don't appear to be challenging enough to stop Murkowski. Even if every challenged ballot is tossed out and not counted, it looks like Murkowski will still win based on the unchallenged ballots.

[LachlanMinnesota]

How would the law be applied in a community of say, Chechs, who have cousins running against each other? Would we demand compliance with the spelling rules?

Should the law differ based on the spelling practices of different ethnicities? Should Chechs, because of all the dang consonents run together, be held to a higher standard than others?

If not, then everyone should spell correctly. Are we begin swayed because there was not another name on the list similar to Murkowski’s?

Should that matter?

The rule should be consistent for all scenarios, IMHO.

[af_vet_rr]

It's not going to matter at this point. Around 57% of the votes have been checked, and Miller's campaign is challenging even less of them now than they were previously.

More than 90% of Murkowski's votes are going unchallenged. Miller's campaign needed to challenge and get at least 12% thrown out. It's like Miller's people have forgotten basic math or something. It's very disappointing because Murkowski getting in might as well be another Democrat.

[who knows what evil?]

We need a ‘sore loser’ law...you lose in the primary; you are DONE for that election cycle. Period. Name it in honor of Murkowski...call it Veruca’s Law.

[af_vet_rr]

That's just a case of sour grapes :-)

There are obviously a lot fewer conservatives in Alaska than people thought. No surprises there - they already have one Senator who is a Democrat.

It's not even really Murkowski's fault - people who voted for her probably would have either voted for a liberal with a (D) next to their name instead of an (R) like Murkowski or they just wouldn't have voted. Expecting Murkowski's supporters to automatically vote for Miller is foolish, given their makeup.

Remember, Miller barely got 10% more than the Democrat.