Tag: AK-Sen

In the comments, bear83 points us to this handy timeline for the counting of outstanding ballots in Alaska. When we combine that schedule with this list of outstanding votes, we can piece together (as bear did) the following:

Region 1, Juneau:

Question ballots (511): Friday, 1 PM

Absentee ballots (8,357): Tuesday, 9 AM

Region 2, Anchorage:

All remaining ballots (15,709): Tuesday, 10 AM

Region 2, Wasilla:

Question ballots (2,751): Friday, 8 AM

Absentee ballots (2,431): Friday, 1 PM

Region 3, Fairbanks:

Question ballots (2,362): Friday, 11 AM

Absentee ballots (5,006): Monday, 10 AM

Region 4, Nome

All remaining ballots (3,594): Friday, 8 AM

As I said yesterday, and as you can visually with this handy results map, in the ballots counted so far, Begich did well in Juneau, won a majority of the districts in Anchorage (and ran reasonably well in the districts where he lost), romped in Nome, and basically ended up with a wash in Fairbanks. Of these remaining votes, only the Mat-Su (Wasilla) ballots are set to give Stevens an obvious edge. Overall, Begich’s chances seem good.

You know you are headed for defeat when your own pollster predicts that you will end up losing when all of the votes are counted.

“I don’t think Stevens can come back,” Dittman said, noting that he thinks the remaining trove of uncounted ballots will help Begich “increase his lead.”…

Dittman believes early and absentee ballots, which compromise the approximately 40,000 votes left to count, will likely reflect Begichs’ overall advantage so far among those who took advantage of either process. Heavy early voting occurred in the period that directly followed Stevens’ conviction on seven felony counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms.

This is good news, indeed. On a personal note, I will be travelling back to Michigan tomrorrow and my elderly parents do not even have a computer, let alone access to the internet. I was wondering if some kind soul would be willing to send me text messages to my mobile phone to keep me up to date? If I don’t have vote counting information, I’ll go insane. Feel free to send me an email and I will give you the number. Any assistance will be much appreciated. Thanks.

Zoom, zoom, zoom!

Mark Begich made a dramatic comeback Wednesday to overtake Ted Stevens for the lead in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race.

Late Wednesday night, Begich led Stevens by 814 votes — 132,196 to 131,382 — with the state still to count roughly 35,000 more ballots over the next week.

The state Division of Elections tallied about 60,000 absentee, early and questioned ballots on Wednesday. The ballots broke heavily in Begich’s favor, erasing the 3,000-vote lead that Stevens had after election night last Tuesday.

That leaves an additional 20,000 absentee ballots and 15,000 questioned ballots to be scrutinized and counted. The Anchorage Daily News gives us a timeframe:

The regional election districts centered in the Mat-Su Valley, Nome and Fairbanks will count their remaining ballots Friday. The Southcentral regional election district, based in Anchorage, plans to count ballots between Monday and Wednesday.

As you can see from ADN’s results map, in the results tallied so far, the Mat-Su Valley went strongly for Stevens, while Nome went about as strongly for Begich. Fairbanks was a bit of a wash, and both candidates have different pockets of support in Southcentral. Overall, though, our friends at 538 feel good about the numbers so far. I’m optimistic, too.

Update: ADN has revised the quoted section above to the following:

Most regional elections headquarters will count their remaining ballots on Friday. But the most populous region, based in Anchorage, won’t count its ballots until either Monday or Wednesday, state elections chief Gail Fenumiai said.

So I’m a little unclear as to where exactly these remaining votes are coming from, although the article states that the Nome-based election district (northern and western Alaska, where Begich romped) has yet to count any of its absentee ballots at all.

One More Update: The AP still hasn’t declared a winner in the state’s at-large House race, but the odds of Don Young losing seem slim to none. After today’s flood of new votes, The Donald currently sits on a 15,000-vote lead. That number didn’t budge much from Young’s earlier 17K lead. So, if there are indeed 35,000 absentee and questioned ballots left to be counted, Berkowitz would have to win a bit over 70% of those outstanding votes (assuming that all those questioned ballots are counted — which isn’t going to happen). Given the relatively minimal movement in Berkowitz’s favor compared to Begich’s pickup, is this at all possible? I very much doubt it. Perhaps there are even more absentee or provisional ballots floating around that could bump that number up, but even still, it’s hard to see a path for a Berkowitz miracle here.

Nail-in-the-Coffin Update: The AP calls the race for Young. (H/T: Progressive America)

A few minutes ago, the state of the race was as follows:

Stevens (R): 118,602

Begich (D): 117,631

And now?

Stevens (R): 125,016

Begich (D): 125,019

That still leaves some more ballots to be counted today, but this trend is excellent.

Up-to-the-minute updates are available here.

Great news:

It’s just getting started, but early results from this afternoon’s ballot counting in the contest for U.S. Senate show Mark Begich gaining ground against incumbent Sen. Ted Stevens.

The elections division still has tens of thousands of ballots left to count today and even more next week, but the latest numbers show Stevens’ lead is down to 971 votes.

The new numbers, reflecting nearly 28,000 newly counted absentee ballots, are from all over the state. Election night, Stevens led the Democratic Begich by about 3,000 votes.

Before this latest batch of counted ballots, Stevens has leading by 3257 votes, so this is some excellent movement.

Altogether, the state is counting 60,000 absentee or questioned ballots today — so there’s a lot of room left for Begich to grow his vote count. On top of that, there are an additional 35,000 votes that the Alaska Department of Elections will be counting over the next week. More updates as we get ’em…

Update: For up-to-the-minute results, check here.

Update II: Friend of SSP Nate Silver says that the outstanding districts that won’t post finalized counts today are Begich-friendly rural areas. (Indeed, if you take a look at the map, Begich did quite well in most of the state’s rural areas.)

Update III: Begich takes the lead — by a margin of three votes!

At Intrade right now, Al Franken is at 57.5 and Mark Begich is at 66.8.

While the trading volumes aren’t that high, it appears the bettors think they have a really good chance win when the counting is finally completed.  Nate Silver rates a Franken a “slight favorite” to win the recount (Franken is 206 votes behind).

So can we net another Senate seat?

During each weekday this month, we’ll be posting a new open thread for every state featuring a senatorial or gubernatorial contest, and asking for your thoughts on who should run.

Alaska will feature two statewide contests of note — the gubernatorial race featuring Sarah Palin, and the Senate contest featuring incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski.

So whom do you like for challengers to these seats? As David said the first time we did this, don’t be afraid to think creatively:

Don’t limit yourself to politicians. Businesspeople, community leaders, activists – even athletes or celebrities (think Heath Shuler or Al Franken) – are all fair game. Even seemingly outlandish suggestions are welcome. Would you have ever predicted that the guitarist from Orleans would now be a Congressman-elect?

Have at it. Alabama to come tomorrow.

Yesterday, I asked you to help Democrats Jim Martin and Mark Begich via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page as the Georgia Senate race heads toward a run-off against Shameless Saxby Chambliss and the Alaska Senate race heads toward a protracted vote count and possible legal battle against convicted felon Ted Stevens.

You responded with hundreds of dollars and we are so close to our goal on the Expand the Map! ActBlue page – please help Martin and Begich meet the goal this weekend:

Democrat	Current	Goal	Difference
Jim Martin	$3,385 $3,900	$4,000	$615 just $100
Mark Begich	$5,553 $5,820	$6,000	$447 just $180

Please make a contribution today via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page and help Jim Martin and Mark Begich eject Saxby Chambliss and Ted Stevens from the U.S. Senate.

With the Georgia Senate race headed toward a run-off election and the Alaska Senate race amid a protracted vote count, both Jim Martin and Mark Begich need your continued support!

Please, please, please make a contribution to them via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page this weekend!

Democrat	Current	Goal	Difference
Jim Martin	$3,385	$4,000	$615
Mark Begich	$5,553	$6,000	$447

Please, please, please contribute this weekend!

A roundup of races that haven’t yet been decided:

AK-Sen: Will this race be finalized before Ted Stevens is carted off to the big house? Answer: Yes. Will it be over before the Senate has a chance to boot his sorry ass? Maybe not. While Unca Ted has a 3,300-vote lead, some 76,000 ballots remain to be counted. Supposedly, they need to be counted by Nov. 14th, but the “target date” for certification is not until Nov. 25th (PDF). And then, who knows – maybe we’ll have a recount.

P.S. More here from Mark Begich’s brother Tom.

CA-04: Conservative Icon™ Tom McClintock has a 451-vote lead with 100% of precincts counted. Absentees and provisional ballots need to be counted. But check this out:

If no candidate is more than ½ of 1 percentage point ahead in the semiofficial Election Day results, county election officials will automatically begin partial manual audits. After the counties deliver their totals to the secretary of state in December the candidates will have the option to ask for a recount. (Emphasis added.)

We could be waiting a long time on this one.

GA-Sen: This race will likely go to a run-off between Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin. A run-off can’t formally be declared until the state certifies the election results next week, and outstanding votes could possibly tip the race to Chambliss. Nonetheless, both sides are in campaign mode. If there is a run-off, it will be held Dec. 2nd.

LA-04: This seat will also feature a run-off between Dem Paul Carmouche and Republican John Fleming. The date for that face-off is Dec. 6th.

MD-01: Dem Frank Kratovil is sitting on a 915-vote lead. But some 25,000 absentee ballots need to be counted. Results get certified Nov. 14th – not too bad, compared to some other states.

MN-Sen: An automatic recount seems certain here. Dickface Norm Coleman leads by a mind-boggling 475 votes out of 2.9 million cast. (Shades of WA-Gov 2004?) Oh, and here’s why I’m calling him a dickface. State law provides for an automatic recount if the margin is less than 0.5%. Yet this is what he’s said:

“Yesterday the voters spoke. We prevailed,” Coleman said Wednesday at a news conference. He noted Franken could opt to waive the recount.

“It’s up to him whether such a step is worth the tax dollars it will take to conduct,” Coleman said, telling reporters he would “step back” if he were in Franken’s position. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said the recount would cost 3 cents per ballot, or almost $90,000.

What a chiseler – ninety-fucking-thousand dollars. That’s like one wealthy-donor-funded Nieman Marcus shopping spree for this douchenozzle. Anyhow, the same article says that a recount won’t begin until mid-November and could take “weeks.” Lawyers, ten-hut!

OH-15: As noted below, GOPer Steve “Steve” Stivers is ahead of Mary Jo Kilroy by just 321 votes. We may get final results in ten days, or maybe longer. If the final margin is under 0.5%, then there will be an automatic recount. We had one of those last time in this very same race – it took until mid-December to complete.

VA-05: Dem Tom Perriello is clinging to a 31-vote lead over incumbent Virgil Goode. Absentees need to be counted. This race will surely go to a recount. However, VA law does not provide for automatic recounts, and a candidate cannot request one until after the official canvas is complete. That isn’t until Nov. 24th, so sit tight.

WA-08: Good idea: Let’s allow everyone in Washington state to vote by mail! Bad idea: Let’s make the rule that you have to postmark your ballot by election day. In neighboring Oregon (the vote-by-mail pioneer), ballots sensibly have to be received by election day. But Washington has decided to do things the annoying way, so it’ll be a while before we get final results here – election officials say it’ll take a week to count all the ballots. (Though I don’t know if there is a drop-dead date by which ballots must be received.)

Anyhow, in the meantime, we know that GOPer Dave Reichert has about a 1,900-vote lead over Darcy Burner. The good news is that in 2006, Reichert won by 14.83% in Pierce County and 0.15% in King County. This time so far, he’s ahead by just 12.22% in Pierce and is behind 1.62% in King, which has 80% of the district’s population. My sense is that Burner probably has to start doing a little bit better in King to pull this one off.

UPDATE: Skywaker9 says that properly postmarked ballots have to be received within a week in WA.

LATE UPDATE (James): In the shocker race in California’s 44th District, where unheralded Dem challenger Bill Hedrick is trailing GOP scuzzbucket Rep. Ken Calvert by 4600 votes, neither side has declared victory yet.