Alaska Update

72 percent of the write-ins have now been counted. Murkowski is so confident of victory, she sent her top lawyer home. By the numbers, she's probably right.

The count stands at 98,565 write-ins and 87,517 votes for Miller after Friday's tally of absentee and questioned votes. That tally slightly widened the margin of write-ins over Miller to 11,048 votes.

To win, Miller needs 12.6% of those write-ins to be for someone other than Murkowski or to be thrown out for ballot marking errors. He's not going to make it. By 98%, the write-ins have been for Murkowski. Better than 90% of those are going unchallenged, which means that Murkowski will win without ever having to count the challenged ballots.

Miller's challenges actually dropped yesterday to only 8.4% after the flood of stories Thursday night (including here at the HQ) that he was making frivolous challenges to accurately spelled ballots. At that rate, his lawsuit will be moot and Murkowski will keep her Senate seat.

After the rest of the election day write-ins are counted, the Division of Elections will count the absentee and early vote write-ins. They are counting through the weekend and the whole thing is supposed to wrap up early next week.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 09:42 AM

| Access Comments