The Fix:
Democrat Mark Begich now leads Sen. Ted Stevens (R) by just over 1,000 votes with more than 90 percent of the total ballots now counted in the high-profile Alaska Senate race.
The Alaska Division of Elections counted another 14,500 votes on Friday and Begich's lead increased from 841 before the day started to 1,022 when the counting ended.
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The plan was to elect Stevens then the Senate would kick him out then they could run a stronger Repub candidate. So let's hope that Begich wins by a big enough margin to avoid the mandatory recount.
And so it should be.
Stevens losing the election saves the other Senators from voting him out once he goes to prison.
Oh please let this be over and Stevens out so it also removes Palin from the potential mix if Stevens got in and was removed.
GREAT, YOU ALL KNOW PALIN WAS CHOPPING AT THE MOOSE MEAT TO GET IN THAT SENATE SEAT. NOT A GOOD YEAR FOR ALASKA.
I think it's almost impossible now for Stevens to win.
Here are the remaining Districts to count
http://www.elections.alaska.gov/files/08GENR/absentee_early_question_numbers.pdf.
Mat-Su is completely counted and unless the absentees skew very sharply away from the normally submitted votes TOWARD Stevens (actually it's been going the OTHER way) one can actually estimate that Begich will gain a surplus of a minimum of 665 votes over whatever Stevens gets. 1022 + 665 would put him about 200 votes over the mandatory recount point (@1470 votes).
For perspective Begich won Region I (District 1-5, 33-36) by 53%-47% and Region II by 50.7% to 49.3% (ignoring 3rd party votes) in votes cast on election day. He was leading in Early votes (probably most like absentee submissions by over 10% more in those two areas.
One, two, three, ah four..... How many days since the election. I don't care how big Alaska is, in this day and age of technology, these votes should have been counted already. From the smell, the left over salmon is starting to stink. Or maybe that's Palin, she's back in Alaska ya no!
hope the lead grows - would like to see Alaska reject this cro-ok and The Republiban (Rep-ubli-can + Tali-ban).
Okay, Okay, Tom! We Get It!! Very clever!
(But I like mine better = RepugniKon! I'll explain it for you: Repug = almost 'Repub'; ...pugni = almost 'publi'; liKon = 'lican' ; Kon = 'can' or Kon, like in neoKons! Get it? Get it?)
Brick
Let me be the first to say Buh-Bye Ted!
I HOPE WE GET THE 60 SEAT MAJORITY SO WE CAN GET THINGS DONE.
I'm simply flabbergasted this race has extended this long. Stevens was convicted on seven counts of felony charges and the people of Alaska voted for him. Just the idea that he did something improper should have stopped one vote let alone the thousands he received. Hmmm and Alaskans see nothing wrong with that. .
I suppose they had to pull out all those ballots they hid when they saw Steven couldn't win. 90,000 votes are a lot not to count on election day or the day after.
Early votes (absentee in person) were always scheduled to be counted later.
The rest has a lot to do with the geography of Alaska.
Most Americans have no concept of the sheer size of this place. If there is bad weather, planes simply don't fly in or out of small communities. There is no road system to much of Alaska.
On Wednesday, Begich will be declared the winner.
Alaska is a state where even residents are pretty mobile and can't get back to their home precincts to vote. Absentee and by-mail ballots, and submitting your vote in a different precinct is fairly well established. In order to do this, and prevent "double voting" they have to check the local precinct rolls against the names of those submitting absentee, early votes, and voting "out of precinct". That takes time.
I suppose at some time they could place scanned images of signatures on-line and then check submitted votes that have been recorded on a national data base. That way someone who shows up to vote, and a vote has already been cast under that name would be "held aside". Still the problem arises as to which vote is "valid" and should be cast. That can only be done after the day of the election.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Up until '06 Stevens was third in line of succession to the presidency. Nice.
If Stevens loses this race then the republicans lose a seat for real. If Stevens by any crooked, slime way wins he will just be toosed by Congress for his corruption conviction and then Palin chooses who goes to washington. She could choose Toad and set the place for the family in Washington. After all he was only the one who joined the secession group and I don't remember anyone asking him about anything so he could be smarter, or not, than the wife. He does have political experience as he has had an office in his wife's while she was mayor and Gov so he has done everything for her so her hands could stay clean (?). Also I doubt he would ever get elected and she isn't known now if she could get the Senate seat or not, so if Mark loses and Ted wins Palin wins.
Nope....if a sitting Senator is removed Alaska requires a new election to fill the spot. That law was placed into the Alaska Constitution after the Gov. that Palin replaced (Murkowski) appointed his daughter to the Senate. Ironically, Palin pushed for the introduction of this "direct vote" law.
Palin has always has had eyes for Lisa Murkowki's seat in 2010...which is when her term as Governor ends. That's the one she is gonna go for.
Don't get all excited though ... Palin can challenge Murkowski in 2 yrs ..... Let's hope the people of Alaska are paying attention in the meantime.
1- Sarah needs to be investigated as to how her house was built and paid for
2- Did she get that Lakefront Lot legally?
3- Did she donate those clothes to her favorite consignment shop in Anchorage??
4- Is there a fraudulent birth certificate out there regarding Trig's birth?
That should keep the people of Alaska busy for a while ... and more should come out, once they start investigating
We don't need them to pay attention. Let them elect her, so she can try to play ball with the big kids in the Senate.
As far as I'm concerned, the bigger she gets in the party, the better it is for the Democrats.
Sarah ... There is your open door ! See it?? It's right there ..... the one marked EXIT ....... buh bye !
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First Posted: 11-14-08 09:24 PM | Updated: 12-15-08 05:12 AM