Posted on 11/16/2010 4:05:50 PM PST by speciallybland
As the number of ballots left to count dwindles toward zero, staffers for U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski's historic write-in campaign are looking forward to the moment they can declare victory over Joe Miller.
"By the end of the day today anyone with simple arithmetic skills can draw some conclusions," said Murkowski campaign manager Kevin Sweeney. "By the end of the day tomorrow the count will actually be done so the campaign can make a declaration."
The Miller campaign continues to insist that the race is "far from over." In a Tuesday morning press release Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto compared the number of unchallenged votes for Murkowski with the number of votes Miller has received. The problem with his statement is that right now the Division of Elections is counting those ballots, putting Murkowski more than 1,700 votes ahead. Miller has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the division from counting the challenged ballots, but he faces an uphill legal climb to do so.
It's also possible that Murkowski will amass enough votes to win even without those challenged ballots, though the margin would be much narrower.
Counting started a few hours later than normal Tuesday, so instead of the normal two ballot updates the Division of Elections will only release one update towards the end of the day. Check back around 5:30 p.m.
According to Sweeney, the remaining ballots will continue to swing the margin in Murkowski's favor. There are about 8,000 write-in ballots being counted today, Sweeney said, of which Murkowski should reap about 97 percent. The only other votes left to count are the up to 700 special advance ballots (though presumably far fewer) that have been mailed in, as well as a small handful of votes from a few rural precincts that were late arriving, Sweeny said.
Chris Clark, a Murkowski observer who has been watching the counting since Wednesday, said he's seen fewer instances of Miller observers challenging ballots solely on penmanship issues. Clark was also feeling good about Murkowski's chances.
"There's a buzz in the air, that's for sure," Clark said.
I hope the senator’s remaining time in DC is utterly miserable.
So, absentee voters are going to be disenfranchised?
Joe Miller should not concede until every last vote has been counted, and that includes the absentee ballots.
I thought they weren’t counting the military absentee votes until Friday.
Miller needs to take this to court. The Division of Elections is ignoring Alaska’s legal requirement that absentee votes must be correctly spelled.
If you want to go by “intent,” you have to change the law first.
Easy to be confident when the fix is in ...
It seems as if the Murkowski camp (AND the compliant media) are putting out lots of “the counting is over and we won” reports in hopes that Miller will concede. Starting tomorrow, I predict, they’ll start with “if he cares about what’s good for Alaska, he’d concede” nonsense like they did with Bush in 2000.
> I thought they weren’t counting the military absentee votes until Friday.
MooKow and her gleeful RINO minions are trying to pressure Miller into conceding.
Pray that he doesn’t until the military votes are counted.
That any Alaskan would vote for MooKow trash speaks badly for that Alaskan.
That so many in Alaska would vote for that piece of trash speaks badly of Alaska.
Why are there so many Murkowski loyalists in the first place since she lost the ticket to Miller. Something is not right.
The cheating is almost done, and the judges in Alaska appear to be crooked (Murkowski’s father was behind their appointments).
I hope Miller takes this all the way to SCOTUS if necessary. Princess Lisa is indescribably horrible.
Thank you, Republican leadership, for making nice and refusing to remove her from her committee assignments. If this woman gets in, I hope she makes your life miserable.
Find the voter fraud, expose it!!!
Joe should have enough retired military vets willing to investigate the voter fraud.
That any Alaskan would vote for MooKow trash speaks badly for that Alaskan.
That so many in Alaska would vote for that piece of trash speaks badly of Alaska.
I sure have to agree with you.
This is just like 2000. They can’t overcome the spelling rule just because they say so.
IIRC, Gore was never ahead in the count, so anyone who said Bush ought to concede was sending water up a rope.
When was the last time someone from Alaska won the national spelling bee? C’mon..... Murkowski?
Only if you're a legislator. If you're a judge all you have to do is rule. And they do. :(
I am confident her moocher constituents will be left flat with no freebies. A Pork Queen With no Pork.
Good question!
The General Election totals are around 184,000.
But the primary total was only 104,346. See below:
Murkowski’s concession came after a day of counting just over 17,000 absentee and questioned ballots. Nearly 12,000 of them were from Republican primary voters, who had the potential to change the Miller-Murkowski race. But when the day was done, Murkowski had only picked up 38 votes and Miller’s lead was 1,630 votes. He had a total of 52,988 votes to 51,358 for Murkowski.
Read more: http://www.adn.com/2010/08/31/1433454/murkowski-concedes-senate-race.html#ixzz15UfszJww
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