Begich-Stevens Race Update - November 7

[Blue_In_AK]

From ProgressiveAlaska http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2008/11/begich-stevens-race-update-nov-7th.html

Here’s the latest on the Alaska Senate Race:

According to the Division of Elections, there are now 81,000 ballots outstanding that need to be counted. This accounts for more that a quarter of the total votes.

Also today, the Division of Elections said they’d count about 2/3 of the ballots (absentee and early) next Wednesday. Questioned ballots aren’t likely to be counted until the end of next week or even the beginning of the following week. Based on data from the Division of Elections, Begich is leading Senator Ted Stevens in the early votes which have been counted – 59% to 37%. However, there will be enough question ballots left after Wednesday’s count for the race to still go either way.

Thanks,

Bethany Lesser

[Tutonic]

1. Dems need to closely monitor this one. Begich should prevail but

this state is completely corrupt.

[Blue_In_AK]

4. Believe me, we're on it.

Here's a nice little blog entry from The Immoral Minority http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2008/11/so-is-there-election-scandal-in-alaska.html

I have been talking to everybody who will listen to me about this issue both yesterday and today.

I have found many people who are just as confused as I am and really believe there is something afoot. Then there are others, many good activist friends, who think my cart is waaay out in front of my horse.

So this is what I have to work with so far.

Voter turnout is the second lowest in the history of Alaskan politics. Why?

We had over 4,000 Democrats who were excited enough to caucus on one of the coldest days on record in February of this year. The old record for turnout in a caucus was 254 set in 2004. Are we to believe that they crammed the halls of the Begich Middle School just to stay home on Tuesday? Really?

By the way here is the webpage for the Division of Election in Alaska. On it you can look at the voting, precinct by voting precinct, and see how everybody supposedly voted.

And from that site here is an interesting observation. In Anchorage the largest concentrations of African Americans live in Fairview, which only shows a turnout of 25.61%, and in Mountain View, which is broke up into three voting precincts with 30.82%, 26.38%, and 36.38% respectfully.

Now it seems to me that if you are an African American living anywhere in this great country, and for the first time you believe that your vote might finally help break the color barrier that has kept the Presidency lily white for two hundred years, you would crawl through glass to cast that vote. And yet those are among the lowest numbers for turnout in the entire state.

Now I am certainly not the only Alaskan blogger wondering about this election.

Shannyn Moore has two great posts here http://shannynmoore.wordpress.com/2008/11/06/stolen-election-in-alaska/ and here http://shannynmoore.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/alaska-on-ebay-election-numbers-update/ on the subject.

And Mudflats has pondered what this all means here. http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/11/06/crunching-the-numbers-in-alaska/

If you want to see and hear what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has to say about all of this then just click here. And as her guest she also has fivethirtyeight's Nate Silver who is also more then a little concerned over the numbers.

So what does this all mean? Right now not a hell of a lot.

But it does mean that ALL progressives have to sharpen their senses and pay very close attention to the final count of early votes, absentee ballots, and questioned ballots. It means we do not take ANYTHING at face value. It means that we show unity in our desire to make damn sure that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF OUR VOTES GET COUNTED!

If there is nothing to this, then fine, no harm no foul. But if we find that somebody has decided to piss on our democracy and take away from us the very thing that makes us Americans. Well then we need to make damn sure they are caught, tried , and punished.

They will find plenty of company in Alaska prisons with other Republican politicians and henchmen who also thought that they could take advantage of the people of this great state.

We have a new leader in our country and he has called on all of us to stand with him in protecting this nation.

Personally I am planning to answer that call to action.

Are you?

--------------------------

We won't be going down without a fight this time. :)

[roguevalley]

11. Blue, I love ya.I can hardly sleep over this. Let me know if there is stuff to do.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Uncounted Votes May Push Begich Past Stevens

Friday, November 7, 2008
Uncounted Votes May Push Begich Past Stevens

Although Ted Stevens currently holds a lead of approximately 3,200 votes in ballots counted to date in Alaska's senate contest, there is good reason to believe that the ballots yet to be counted -- the vast majority of which are early and absentee ballots -- will allow Mark Begich to mitigate his disadvantage with Stevens and quite possibly pull ahead of him.

The reasoning behind this is simple: some early ballots have been processed, and among those ballots Begich substantially leads Stevens. A tally of Alaska's 40 house districts as taken from Alaska's Division of Elections webpage suggests that Begich has won about 61% of the early ballots counted so far, as compared with 48% of ballots cast on Election Day itself.

more at..
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

[LakeSamish706]

3. Thanks for the update Blue_In_AK... Lets hope that Dems prevail in this race... n/t

[dccrossman]

5. K&R

:kick:

[intheflow]

6. The uncounted ballots account for more than a QUARTER of total votes cast?

:wow: Obama needs about 56,000 to tie with McCain. It would really kick ass if Obama won as well as Begich! :)

[2dogs2queets]

7. Thank you Blue

Thanks for keeping us informed.

[northofdenali]

8. My phone calls today were well-received -

Ak. Dems, Interior Dems, et al. I think this will be one of the most closely-watched vote counts in the history of this state.

Thanks for the update, Blue! :kick:

[loudsue]

9. Thank you for keeping this front & center!!! Just because we won

a majority of our races doesn't mean that there may be somebody's vote out there that doesn't matter! It's time we started letting the publicity get out as to what happened in these so called "close" races. The republicans have only had power for the past 8 years because they've been CHEATING on our elections. We need to make elections CHEAT PROOF.

:kick:

[CampDem]

10. Yes, thank you Blue!

I hope a lot of those 81,000 ballots were for dems. We could still see Begich win this and a much higher total for Obama!!Keep counting!



:bounce: :bounce: :kick: