Posted on 11/16/2010 2:56:45 PM PST by Qbert
Princess Lisa now leads by about 1,700 votes after Monday's review. There are still about 8,000 write-in ballots and 600 absentees to be counted. It's not looking good given that the Division of Elections is counting 97% of the write-ins for Murkowski, despite the fact that thousands of the ballots do not spell her name correctly, a requirement in the actual law.
Via the Anchorage Daily News:
The Division of Elections has now counted 92,164 votes for Murkowski and 90,458 for Miller. Murkowski's number will grow as the state continues to go through write-in ballots today, looking to see what name voters wrote on them.
[...]
"It's hard for me to figure that they would be able to look at these numbers and come up with any reasonable move other than facing the fact that Lisa Murkowski won the election," Sweeney said.
The Miller campaign insists that's not the case. Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto said he still thinks the court challenge could get enough votes thrown out for Miller to win.
The review of write-in ballots began last Wednesday and should essentially finish in the next day or so. The Murkowski campaign's numbers show another 10,000 write-ins remain to be counted. It predicts that Murkowski is going to end up with a total exceeding 100,000 votes given the trend of the count.
That could give Murkowski a lead over Miller in the 10,000-vote range once the counting is over.
Miller ballot observers so far have challenged 7,601 of the votes the state has counted for Murkowski. Miller has filed a lawsuit asking the federal courts to throw out the challenged ballots that are misspelled or otherwise not written perfectly.
But some of the ballots that Miller observers challenged were clearly spelled right and looked to be filled in correctly. So it's likely that not all the challenged ballots would be tossed, even if Miller ended up winning the lawsuit.
Miller spokesman DeSoto, though, said the race is still in play. He said he believes Miller and Murkowski will end up with about the same total of votes, if you subtract the votes Miller challenged but the Division of Elections counted.
Miller argues that state law doesn't allow misspelled votes. But the state and the Murkowski campaign say Alaska courts have indicated in the past that if "voter intent" can be determined from the ballot -- such as if a slight misspelling still produced a name that sounded like "Murkowski" -- that should be the standard.
Miller has said he would drop the fight if it was obvious he couldn't win. But his campaign said Monday that time hasn't arrived.
"At the end of six days of ballot counting, the race between Joe Miller and Lisa Murkowski is still very close," DeSoto said.
It just shows how desperately congress critters cling to their position. It’s a matter of life and death to them. Nothing else matters.
Term limits is the answer to relieve them of their agony.
Like I said this may just start a totally new form of domestic cold war, conservatives throwing debris in front of a useless state Senator. The best part of course will be the years of open animosity from literally both sides of the Senate.
She cannot even be a decent Independent. She will be the crow in a flock of seagulls.
If the law states the name must be spelled correctly, then she loses. Courts have to uphold the law right? Or is that just crazy thinking on my part?
I say, even if the federal courts deny Miller's request, go all the way to SCOTUS. W did in 2000. The contested votes were from the state of Florida. Alaska is saying that Miller can't override the state and go to the feds for a ruling. W already proved you can in 2000 with Florida.
I say go for it Joe. All the way to SCOTUS if necessary.
Two issues. I think they should only allow exact spelling of names. This (close enough) stuff to count every vote no matter how they failed to vote correctly is bull.
Second, if they want so badly to count every vote, why can't Miller have counted those who voted for him by writing in? How can they negate his write in votes and allowed Murks to be all these variations of close enough?
I want constancy everywhere.
Right where the majority of people want it to. Everyone of the thieving , librtyrobbing sobs in office were put there by a majority vote. It is the sorry ass people’s fault, not the politican’s. The politicians are only taking advantage of a situation.
The fault of this is entirely at the feet of the effetes of the GOP leadership.
Steele must go.
Lisa Murky would not have done this without GOP blessings.
Unlike in a Presidential election, SCOTUS is not the final answer here. Under the Constitution, the Senate is the final judge of the elections of its own members. (Article I, section 5, clause 1). So whoever loses in court can appeal to the full Senate.
Joe Miller ran a great primary campaign, and a horrible general election campaign.
He had this in the bag, and lost it, through his own mistakes.
Why would she pass out wristbands with her name spelled incorrectly? This is the type of whining that AlGore and the Dems have perfected. We should be better than trying to rely on chickenspit nitpicking.
Now you know why they did not take her committee positions.
I was going to, in fact, I did use it and then went back and changed it, use the word “strip”. But then I thought, “use strip in conjunction with Lisa?”. The image of that was more than I could handle.
If the law requires the spelling to be correct, then sue the Elections board. Sue them for breaking the law.
Simple. Has it occurred to the review committee that there were several that were absolutely identical handwriting? I bet there are some good lawyers on Joe's team that have already proven this through handwriting analysis.
Now, of course, the dems wouldn't allow someone writing in princess lisa's name multiple times. /sar
How many overseas military ballots have yet to be counted?
From the last line of the posted article [you have to click the link to see entire article].......
Only about 600 absentee ballots remain to be counted later this week from military and overseas addresses, according to the Division of Elections.
Read more: http://www.adn.com/2010/11/15/1555926/murkowski-passes-miller-in-vote.html#ixzz15UUyHGDi
Point being (since you appear to be a little slow on the uptake) is that she KNEW that the law required the spelling to be correct on the write-ins, and now wants to change the rules when it doesn't suit her.
You're just plain wrong. The Dems have perfected the art of changing the rules mid-game if things don't go their way. The whole crux of conservatism is to stick to the rules and laws as written - we've never strayed from that principle.
Thanks!
Have we ever heard about a significant number of Joe Miller write-in ballots ?
We are seeing our Republic being destroyed right before our eyes.
I'll bet that fewer than 25 percent of Americans even realize that it is happening. They will wake up one day and be surprised out of their freedoms.
Challenge every damn one! GOP had better step up here.
Hear me Cornyn? Legal docs have to have every i dotted and t crossed so how is this any different?
Why should SCOTUS hear it? They’ll just say it’s Alaska’s business, how it wants to apply the law its legislature wrote.
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