Hand Count Coming in the Alaska Senate Race?
Here’s the latest information on the Alaska Senate race. Looks like we’re headed for the most important step – a full hand recount of all the ballots!
It’s a good day for election integrity when that happens.
If anyone still needs convincing, check out the must-read post from Brad Friedman who has been dogged on this issue for a very long time, but staunchly stands on the side of the process, not the candidate. He has a very good flak jacket. If the issue of election integrity is close to your heart as it is to ours here at the Mudflats, be sure to bookmark The Brad Blog, and follow @thebradblog on Twitter.
Think we’ve discussed this at ADN Bretta. Something that is not sinking into my old slow brain is how the Diebold machines know it is a write in vote if the oval is not filled in? Don
‘t the machines focus on the ovals to begin with?
Is $arah’s HATCHET MEN behind this recount? Her PUPPET MASTERS
work quietly behind the scenes.
Is $arah HATCHET MEN behind this recount? Her PUPPET MASTERS
work quietly behind the scenes.
Joey will still lose.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the hand count found thousands of ballots for Scott — enough to make him the winner. Not likely, but a guy can dream can’t he?
Hallmark moment!
Any running total on the cost to the State of this ongoing drama?
I’ve just got 2 words – sore loser!
I’m not in favor of a hand recount. I’m not in favor of a recount. But whatever happens, it should be applied to the primary too.
Once the election is certified Joe Miller can request a recount but he has to pay for it.
Sorry, but i don’t buy Joe’s argument that it’s unfair to count the write-ins by hand and the ballot candidates by machine. By the very nature of the write-in it has to be counted by hand. Are we advocating that if there is one write-in ballot vote in an election then all ballots must be handcounted or do we just want every ballot in every election counted by hand?
His argument is also inaccurate, at least based on my understanding of the counting process. Which is that the write-in votes WERE initially counted by the machines; that is, the ones that had the oval filled in. And those are the only ones that were set aside for the hand count. So if he really wants every single vote hand counted, does that also include write-in votes that didn’t have the oval filled in? Some how, I doubt it.
You are correct that the machines counted all the votes, then only those with the oval filled-in were include in the write-in tally; ovals not-filled-in, don’t count at all by state regulation. This part of the lawsuit, a claim by Murkowski for the names-filled-in-but-not-oval, was correctly denied by Judge Carey.
Joe wants his ballots hand counted. I think that is risky for him because the voting machines have been shown to benefit the Republican candidate by adding imaginary votes, so he would more likely lose votes if that is true.
Thanks for the confirmation. Regarding the judge’s decision to deny counting write-in votes without the oval filled in properly…seems to me if they’re going to acknowledge “voter intent” in spelling, they should do the same with ballots that have the name written in regardless if the oval is filled in. Oh well. It’s really a benchmark case, I suppose.
It seems he’s saying the latter and implying that the handcount is more reliable than the machines. But somehow I don’t think he’ll argue too stridently for completely getting rid of machine counting! He’s not interested in any future elections, only the one he lost.
Count me as a bit far gone but i wont believe any number coming from the state at this point. Hand count or not.
He called his begging fund a recount fund and lots of whack jobs put their money in. For once, I personally relish the idea of spending whack job money on taking the State DOE to task. They have been far too smug in my opinion, and I have trusted less and less of our state employees in high places since Granny Twit came along. Any reassurance along those lines is important to me so I don’t have to keep TP’ing state offices. Just kidding.
As much as I dislike Joe Miller, I hope he prevails and gets a full hand count of the ballots and gets them reconciled against the sign-in sheets and the polling place tapes. I DO NOT trust those Diebold Accuvote machines we use to vote. They’re too easily hacked. It’s too easy to just dump votes. We have a right to have our votes counted, even if we dislike the guy who makes that recount happen.
As we say in my kitchen, even a blind hog finds the occasional acorn.
I welcome the hand count, we need to know who really won and do our own ‘accu-check’…with the discrepancies of the past it would be neglectful to assume the machine is correct (which can be proven otherwise). Thank goodness for Joe Miller and his tenacity…the easy thing to do would be to concede, but he is standing up for the right to have a correct count, and that is good, ultimately for us all. Good on him for at least this…and the ‘whack job and special interest’ money needed to see it through…classic double edged sword. hoping for that McAdams surprise!
Lisa is a far bigger cheat than Miller is.
so Miller is going to cheat as in Bush v Gore
He’s sure gonna try. I’m honestly unclear why the point of this article seems to be that a hand count of Millar’s ballots is a good thing. Should we go back and hand count the primary votes as well?
Miller is always going to cheat! If his eyes are open and he’s breathing, he’s planning a way to cheat. There is not one task that man could do that I would trust, except maybe to step in dog poo.
lol…lets hope however this ends up that you get the best representative for the job…us too!
Actually, I think Bush v Gore was pretty close. I’ve not seen where Miller had close to the same number of votes as Murkowski.
There are so few voters in Alaska (compared with my domain, NYC), that I could count all the ballots MYSELF if I had to. It’s about time. I’m happy for you. (Just too bad the winner won’t be Scott.)
This is important for the country. Alaska is not the only state with iffy, if you will, history in this matter. American voters should be watching very diligently. It is a matter of truth and fairness.
Not sure what to say, except that I hope the end result(when it materializes) of all this is that the 2012 elections will have no cloud over them.
2012 will be more of the same until responsible people put their collective feet down. That’s one reason why we get the chance to accept judges.
We, the people, must challenge the status quo. We are the power, we are the biggest block of voters. Don’t forget.
nem
I would hate to see this as a Tea Bagger win but elections should be accurate and Democrats haven’t had much success in perusing voter fraud, (some success but not much) or the balls to press the issue. So maybe the conservative judges will hear the voice of a conservative politician and take it seriously.
Granting that a decision for MIller would only be on the state level but it would still be a win for the voters, and might influence other courts in other states, and would add to legal precedent for future use.
Bottom line, it is the voter’s right to have their ballot counted that should the gold standard. (How’s that for mixed metaphors?
We need to support the concept of this challenge. Thanx to Brad and many others, us Alaskan voters benefit from this drama. I believe we need to see all the information. There is a difference between the roster and the machine count. The whole thing needs to be closely audited.
Thanx, nem