The Alaska elections division has decided to move up the write-in ballot canvass to this week, rather than next week, as originally planned. With write-ins leading Miller by 13,439 votes, it seems pretty likely that Murkowski will pull it off--there just won't be that many spoiled ballots. Not that Miller won't put up a fight.
The fight would be over "voter intent," with the Miller team questioning if a particular write-in vote was meant to be cast for Murkowski or not. The state hasn't been clear on what's allowed. Minor misspellings of Murkowski's name are probably OK, but simply writing "Lisa M," for example, could be an issue.
Murkowski said she's starting "the Alaska Voter Protection Fund" to pay for her legal work. She said she'd be soliciting contributions.
Murkowski said her team will be led by Tim McKeever of Washington, D.C., who was Ted Stevens' longtime campaign manager and attorney....
Campbell said on Tuesday night that the National Republican Senatorial Committee would be helping Miller on the ballot count. The NRSC has had staffers on the ground working in Alaska, but it's unclear exactly what role it will have in the legal fight going forward, because the committee's aim is electing Republicans, and Murkowski is a Republican.
What's clear at this point is that the long-simmering Murkowski/Palin-Miller feud will keep a civil war in the Alaska GOP going for at least a little while longer. Whether Democrats can capitalize on that remains to be seen. But what is clear from this vote is that rural villages that traditionally vote Democratic didn't get the McAdams message.
One-hundred and twenty-three people voted in the eroding, Southwest Alaska village of Newtok on Tuesday. Not one chose Republican senate nominee Joe Miller....
"I was kind of scared (that) Miller might win," said Newtok tribal administrator Stanley Tom, whose job is similar to being a mayor in other towns. "We made a public announcement over the VHF radio to vote for Lisa Murkowski," he said....
The math is striking. Five rural voting districts -- all regions that voted for Tony Knowles over Murkowski in the Senate race just six years ago -- gave the Republican incumbent as much as 60 percent of her apparent 13,400-vote lead over Miller.
Fear of Miller overrode everything else, and McAdams just didn't have time to overcome that. But the Alaska GOP is going to be further weakened by this split and the inevitable bruising battle over ballots, whichever Republican ultimately ends up in the Senate.