The former U.S. Army tank commander who won the battle for Alaska's Republican Senate nomination in August appeared Tuesday to be on the verge of losing the war for election to incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who launched a write-in campaign that wasn't supposed to have a chance.
She now leads challenger Joe Miller by 10,400 votes in the official standings, but his campaign has challenged 8,153 of those votes for faulty spelling or penmanship. And late Tuesday the Miller campaign announced it wanted all of its computer-counted ballots hand counted -- just like Murkowski's were.
"The Murkowski write-in ballots have undergone a hand count review where spoiled ballots are being counted for her, whereas the Miller ballots have all been counted by machine with many valid ballots not being included," Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto said in an e-mail.
It was unclear what ballots DeSoto was referencing, but election observers were of the opinion he was most likely talking about votes computers would not read because voters did not fully blackout the oval designating their candidate. That could lead to another lawsuit over what qualifies as a valid vote. The state Supreme Court has ruled in past cases that if voters fail to black out the oval, too bad; the vote doesn't count.
But ovals might not be the only problem. "The count itself is also suspect due to past problems with machine counting in Alaska," DeSoto said. "Given how close the vote totals are, Miller needs to be given the same opportunity of having all of his ballots inspected and counted by hand to ensure every vote cast for him is counted."
Both sides do at least at this point seem to agree nearly all of the votes have been counted. A few hundred special advance ballots remain to be tallied. Miller's camp says some of those are from service personnel overseas, and the candidate believes they will vote heavily for him. The Murkowski camp doesn't expect the new ballots to change the numbers much, if at all.
Miller has also filed lawsuits challenging the vote count in both state and federal courts and has lobbed accusations of vote fraud. He believes Alaska Native corporations, with assistance from the state Division of Elections, conspired to steal the election he was considering a done deal only a month ago.
In mid-September, Miller was laughing about Murkowski's write-in prospects. Fox News' Greta Van Susteren asked him in a September interview if he'd have to change his Tea Party strategy to beat Murkowski. "It doesn't change our strategy. In fact, we have two liberals now that we're campaigning against instead of one. It's almost if (Democrat) Scott McAdams and Lisa Murkowski are having their own primary. We already won ours," Miller said, chuckling.
Miller wasn't laughing on Tuesday, as a long week of counting write-in ballots and studying penmanship neared an end with Murkowski more than 10,000 votes in front. Miller had hoped to reach this point within challenged ballot range of Murkowski, which would have given him his best shot at a win in court. But he doesn't have enough challenged ballots.
Even if a court were to declare invalid the 8,153 votes his poll watchers challenged, Murkowski would still have a more than 2,200-vote lead over the man who beat her in the GOP primary in August. It appears now she can win even without the challenged ballots, some of which Miller's camp contested because they said "Murkowski, Lisa" instead of "Lisa Murkowski."
That has the Miller camp looking for other avenues of attack, including a full review of how the election was conducted. "The integrity of the vote is at issue," DeSoto charged, "and the people of Alaska must be able to trust the results are being accurately reported."
Murkowski has not yet declared victory, but Tuesday evening Murkowski campaign manager Kevin Sweeney sent out an internal campaign e-mail with the subject line "We Made History!" The body of the e-mail added the campaign would not be declaring victory until the few remaining ballots are counted Wednesday, but said Murkowski would make an announcement Wednesday evening in Anchorage regarding the outcome of the election.
Reached on his cell phone in Juneau, Sweeney said, "Once the final numbers are counted tomorrow, it would be unreasonable for them to carry on. Just looking at the unchallenged, we're up over a full percentage point."
Miller can ask for a recount at the state's expense if the final totals are within 0.5 percent of the total vote -- about 900 votes. He can ask for a recount if the margin is greater than that, too, but he'll have to pay a $15,000 fee.
According to Sweeney, the only ballots left are 300 to 500 advance and overseas ballots that will be counted Wednesday.
Miller campaign manager Robert Campbell, reached in Barrow where he was back to tending to his law practice, said as far as he knew the campaign was following through with the lawsuits it has filed, but that any comment on the campaign's plans over the next few days would have to come from spokesman DeSoto in Juneau. DeSoto, who prefers to communicate by e-mail, didn't return phone calls but did fire off the missive demanding a hand count of Miller ballots.
No comment was immediately available from the Division of Elections. Officially, the state says Murkowski now has 100,868 votes and Miller 90,448. If Miller could win a court ruling tossing all of her challenged votes -- something everyone watching the election says is almost impossible -- he would still trail Murkowski 90,448 to 92,915.
A lawsuit to toss those ballots followed by a recount would be costly, but elections director Gail Fenumiai said in an e-mail Tuesday evening that in a recount every ballot is counted -- not just write-ins -- and every ballot is open to challenge. It is possible there are some Miller votes lurking out there that the computers didn't count because the oval wasn't fully blacked out, but Miller would likely to have to file yet another lawsuit to try to get those votes admitted, given past state court rulings holding voters responsible for darkening ovals enough for computers to read.
Miller continues to solicit funds at his website, www.joemiller.us, with an eye toward continuing the fight. He has also established a hotline to troll for reports of illegal behavior at polling places. That has revealed some actions that appear curious, but as of yet nothing illegal has surfaced.
Contact Joshua Saul at jsaul(at)alaskadispatch.com and Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com.