Why Joe Miller Has Lost
Update for results through November 11:
Murkowski continues to hold an unchallenged 89.78% of the write-in votes, as statistics would predict, with a little less half of the total write-in votes counted. Today’s percentage is actually slightly higher, which translates into a handful of additional votes.
WC will say it again: despite ridiculously lousy excuses for challenges to write-in ballots and sudden, unsupported claims of voter fraud, Miller has lost.
And, gentle readers, when a candidate starts touting talk radio hosts as authority for anything, the candidate knows he has lost. Call it Wickersham’s Law.
The unofficial election results as of November 10 have “Write-In” getting 92,979 votes to Joe Miller’s 82,180. Absentee ballots are still coming in.
As of 6:30 PM on Wednesday, the Division of Elections had counted about 20% of those write-in ballots. Assuming the ballots counted so far are statistically random selection, Miller has lost the election. Here’s why:
About 89% of the ballots are in favor of Lisa Murkowski and are not challenged by Joe Miller’s election watchers.
89% x 92,979 = 82,751 uncontested votes
Even if Joe Miller were to win every single disputed ballot – including the ones he is challenging because they say “Murkowski, Lisa” instead of “Lisa Murkowski” – he still loses by more than 500 votes, a landslide in Alaska’s infamously close election contests.
And Miller’s not going to win on many of his contested write-in ballots. Voter intent is the key, not a twisted, absolutist view of the law. The view is particularly reprehensible in a state where Alaska Native voters have limited English skills, triggering, on the one hand, federal laws designed to protect those votes, and, on the other, a certain racist tinge to Miller’s tactics. Miller, after all, knows those Alaska Native votes are heavily weighted against him.
Miller’s options are either to object to more ballots for even flimsier reasons (“That “i” isn’t crossed.”), lie to himself about the unlikely chance that the first 20% isn’t statistically random, or go home and figure out how to pay his $100,000 in credit card bills. We already know Joe Miller will lie to his colleagues; it’s even easier for him to lie to himself.
WC will update this post for daily results as they come in.
It will be interesting if the margin becomes so razor thin that the difference is decided by the numbers of votes cast for the “chaos” write ins. Most of them seemed to have correctly remembered NOT to vote for themselves, thus the “0″ votes by most of the names. But some have “1″ and one of them has “8″ as of last night’s report!! So the senator’s challenge was a spelling challenge, while Chaos Fagan’s challenge in supporting Joe Miller was to make the chaos-candidates realize that the idea was to NOT vote for themselves but for Joe Miller while distracting other voters with their names on the write-in list. They may very well undo themselves if those wasted write in votes for chaos-candidates turns out to be Miller’s margin of loss or contributes decisively to it. It would serve them right.
See, http://www.elections.alaska.gov
Paul B. Eaglin
eaglin@alaska.com
Fairbanks
paul2eaglin
November 11, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Yup, and all of the I’m a ‘Conservative’ (but still want all my Gov’t candy) folks can breath a little easier tonight. I am relieved though, the Dem may have been a nice guy, but in this Shark infested Congress nice guys end up as bait. Lisa got a second chance – which we should all (probably) be thankful for. The only real disappointment was that we’re likely stuck with ‘the Don’ until he shoots for Robert Byrd’s record.
mrderik
November 11, 2010 at 9:23 pm