It may take weeks to name Alaska Senate winner

[muriel_volestrangler]

Don’t expect to wake up the morning after the election and see a final result from the increasingly bizarre Ted Stevens Senate race in Alaska.
...
The numbers tell the story: Alaska has 490,000 registered voters, and traditional turnout in a presidential year is 60 percent, or about 300,000 total votes. According to Alaska’s director of elections, Gail Fenumiai, there have been 44,000 absentee ballots mailed out for this election.

Fenumiai says the state board of elections won’t begin counting mail-in absentee ballots until the day after the election – and that the process could take 10 to 15 days after that.
...
Let’s say Stevens’s challenger, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, wins electronic voting on election day by 8 percentage points – the same margin by which he leads in the latest Rasmussen poll. Even with that kind of lead, the state would have to count the potential 44,000 absentee ballots, which could account for about 14 percent of the total Alaskan vote.

http://www.mlive.com/us-politics/index.ssf/2008/10/it_may_take_weeks_to_name_alas.html

[speedoo]

1. Plenty of time for the rethugs to steal that one.

So they can give Palin that Senate seat, which might be the only way to keep her alive, politically.

Dems, get ready to fight for that one.