Alaska GOP candidate wants to stop votes from being counted

[MattusMaximus]

You missed that???
Basically, Miller's security arested and roughed up a reporter who was trying to ask Miller a question. It was captured on film, and was the lead story on the news for a couple of days. Should be easy to google the information.

I just looked it up... wow. No wonder Alaskans gave Miller the boot. What a scumbag

I'm going to be really happy to see this moron eventually concede. Watching both he and Quitter Palin eat a huge bowl of crow publicly will be fun

 

[Alferd_Packer]

Miller hinted yesterday that his campaign might demand a recount of all the state's votes, arguing that Murkowski had an unfair advantage because her votes were all counted by hand, while Miller's were counted by computers that have exhibited "past problems."

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/murkowski-flying-home-today-as-ak-sen-vote-count-ends.php

LOL is there a CT in here somewhere?

 

[Alferd_Packer]

So is it possible that votes for Miller were incorrectly counted for Democratic candidate McAdams?

It would be hilarious if it turned out that votes for McAdams were "Incorrectly counted" (wink, wink) for Miller.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

By the way, I looked through the list of registered write-in candidates, and there was no name very similar to Lisa Murkowski's. If the name is misspelled a little, there is still no doubt of the voter's intention. Even if there was an Alaska state law specifying that spelling itself counted, there's plenty of case law that would toss that law out if it thwarted voter intention.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

AP just called it for "murkowski."

 

[dudalb]

Yeah, it's over, baby.

 

[BenBurch]

Haven't felt this good about a GOP win in quite some time.

 

[dudalb]

I just looked it up... wow. No wonder Alaskans gave Miller the boot. What a scumbag

I'm going to be really happy to see this moron eventually concede. Watching both he and Quitter Palin eat a huge bowl of crow publicly will be fun

I am betting that incident is where Miller jumped the shark with a lot of voters.
From some postings on Alaska political websites a lot of people who voted for Miller in the primaries ended up voting for Murkowski after getting a good look at Miller.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Yeah, it's over, baby.

Not so fast. There's plenty of time for Miller, Quitter Palin, and the Tea Party types to embarrass themselves further

 

[dudalb]

The Alaska GOP has now asked Miller to concede and quite his antics.
http://community.adn.com/?q=adn/node/154376&pageNum=4&&&mi_pluck_action=page_nav#Comments_Container

He is beginning to remind me of the Black Knight in "Monty Python And The Holy Grail"......

 

[cwalner]

The Alaska GOP has now asked Miller to concede and quite his antics.
http://community.adn.com/?q=adn/node/154376&pageNum=4&&&mi_pluck_action=page_nav#Comments_Container

He is beginning to remind me of the Black Knight in "Monty Python And The Holy Grail"......

I love this last quote of politicspeak.

“This was a free and fair election. It is now time to look forward. We call on Joe Miller to respect the will of the voters and end his campaign in a dignified manner. We have every expectation that Joe will do the right thing.”

Translation: "Joe, you lost. Take it like a man and now STFU"

 

[Alferd_Packer]

Here is an article that makes a convincing case for hand counting ALL the votes

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8199

Apparently the electronic vote machines have a history of 200% turnout in some areas.

 

[BenBurch]

Here is an article that makes a convincing case for hand counting ALL the votes

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8199

Apparently the electronic vote machines have a history of 200% turnout in some areas.

Brad's a old friend of mine. Electronic machines absolutely are subject to abuse and error, and a paper ballot with boxes and X's counted by hand is a far more certain means of collecting and tallying votes, because there is a physical record of each vote cast. Once you hit "cast ballot" on most machines there is no way to tell what has become of the vote. And even where there is a paper verification strip printed, state law often actually forbids using that strip to recount votes.

In most ways the punch card ballot was superior to the electronic machines.

 

[Kestrel]

Brad's a old friend of mine. Electronic machines absolutely are subject to abuse and error, and a paper ballot with boxes and X's counted by hand is a far more certain means of collecting and tallying votes, because there is a physical record of each vote cast. Once you hit "cast ballot" on most machines there is no way to tell what has become of the vote. And even where there is a paper verification strip printed, state law often actually forbids using that strip to recount votes.

In most ways the punch card ballot was superior to the electronic machines.

Alaska uses optically scanned paper ballots, not touch screen machines. So they can indeed count ballots by hand.

An election system should do a quality check before certifying the results. Pick a small percentage of election precincts at random, count the ballots by hand and compare the result to the totals from the optical scanners. This audit can detect systematic errors in the counting software and establish the error rate for the scanners. If any race was decided by a margin smaller than the error rate, count the votes for that race by hand.

 

[MattusMaximus]

 

[dudalb]

The virtues of Electorinc voting machines is a legit topic of discussion, but somehow I don't think a hand count is gonna help Miller much.......

 

[Alferd_Packer]

The virtues of Electorinc voting machines is a legit topic of discussion, but somehow I don't think a hand count is gonna help Miller much.......

Probably not. I bet the state elections commision will fight like hell against it. It would be high-lareous if the hand count showed that McAddams received more votes than Miller.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

The virtues of Electorinc voting machines is a legit topic of discussion, but somehow I don't think a hand count is gonna help Miller much.......

I don't think those are the two things at hand. Miller wanted the paper ballots that are counted with optical scanners to be hand counted. (As far as I know, no electronic voting machines were used.) My understanding is that if you ask for a recount --which is only granted when the totals are much closer than this race was--all you get is a second time through the optical scanners.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Probably not. I bet the state elections commision will fight like hell against it. It would be high-lareous if the hand count showed that McAddams received more votes than Miller.

I don't think Miller will even get a re-count at all, much less a hand count.

IIRC, the law there says you only get a recount if the results are within a half a percent. With the relatively low number of votes we're talking about, a half percent is very few votes indeed. You'd have to have a virtual tie to get a recount at all.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Alaska uses optically scanned paper ballots, not touch screen machines. So they can indeed count ballots by hand.

An election system should do a quality check before certifying the results. Pick a small percentage of election precincts at random, count the ballots by hand and compare the result to the totals from the optical scanners. This audit can detect systematic errors in the counting software and establish the error rate for the scanners. If any race was decided by a margin smaller than the error rate, count the votes for that race by hand.

While this is physically possible, I'm pretty sure there is no legal basis for a hand count.

ETA: And aside from that, I don't think there's much (if any) evidence that the optical scanners aren't reliable. In this race anyway, the result isn't even close enough to warrant the expense of any kind of recount.