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Update: Something is Rotten in Alaska


Have we ever had a state to equal the corruption in Alaska? Where the governor was found guilty of breaking ethics laws, a senator was convicted of felony corruption charges, and the state's sole congressman was currently under investigation, also for ethics and corruption issues? Does anyone trust the Alaska state government to run a clean election? There are so many irregularities that it is hard to keep track, but Shannyn Moore has a done a pretty good job of creating a summary:

ANCHORAGE - Something stinks. Not just an ordinary low tide smell. Not like something you'd blame on the dog. It smells like an infection. For me to plug my nose, I'd have to overlook some curious facts.

In Alaska, more people voted for George W. Bush in 2004 than for Sarah Palin on Tuesday despite an identical 61-36 margin of victory. Yes. Only four years ago 54,304 Alaskans got off their sofas and voted for Bush, but decided to sit home and not vote for Palin in 2008.

In turn, I have to ignore the 30,520 Alaskans who felt progressive enough in 2004 to vote for John Kerry, but weren't inspired enough to get out and vote for Barack Obama.

I would have to glance past the 1,700% increase in the Democratic caucus in February, the 20,991 newly registered voters, and the three largest political rallies in Alaska's history.

I would also have to forget the people I stood in a long line with to early vote. It would be helpful not to know every other presidential election since Alaska began keeping records has had a larger turn out than the one we just had with our own Governor on the ticket. Try not to remember 12.4% more Alaskans showed up for the August primary as compared to four years ago, before the Palin nomination. Don't think about the Lower 49's record voter turn out this year either. Try to delete the memory file, though difficult, that 80% of us approved of Sarah Palin just two months ago.

There is so much more, and I highly recommend reading her entire report here:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6644

And yes, Alaska is a Diebold Touch-Screen "Faith-Based Voting" state.

*****

Original post:

ABC News is reporting that there are still a lot of ballots to be counted in Alaska:

Shelly Growden, Alaska's elections systems manager, tells ABC News that the current vote totals don't tell the full story. At least 70,000 absentee and provisional ballots have yet to be counted, she said.

The state won't know for several days even how many absentee and provisional ballots were issued, or many of those will be received in time to counted. In Alaska, absentee ballots must be postmarked by Election Day but can arrive as many as 10 days after the election if mailed domestically, and 15 days if sent from overseas, Growden said.

She said she expects final 2008 turnout to have exceeded the 60.1 percent recorded in the 2000 election, though it still probably won't approach the numbers reached in 2004.

"We were preparing for it to be higher," Growden said.

Pollster.com indicates that 96% of Alaska's precints have reported, leaving 4% to go. While there is no chance that the 62/36% split is likely to change in Obama's favor, there is still the issue of the Begich/Stevens race to be decided. According to Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com

Although Ted Stevens holds a small lead in Alaska and is the favorite to retain his seat, the outcome is not as inevitable as it might appear to be. Stevens currently holds a lead of 3,353 votes, or about 1.5 percent of the votes tallied so far. But, there are quite a large number of ballots yet to count.

This of course means that it is still possible for Begich to catch up and turn one more Senate seat blue. Hope!

As far as concerns about voting irregularities, there is an excellent, detailed diary up at Daily Kos that addresses a number of issues:

Stolen election in Alaska? 5 reasons why that accusation is premature.

 


4 Comments

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The truth is that Palin's entourage here encouraged groups to vote for Stevens because it is assumed he will be 'evicted' from Senate and then Palin can appoint herself for the 60 day stint and sign on as candidate for special election to serve whole term!

Funny how too few media outlets are reporting this, but here in Alaska many received calls and visits to spread the word.

And hopefully when the about 70k votes still outstanding are counted, Don Young will no longer be in House either. He doesn't have near the following of Stevens.

But, Palin's VP candidacy did bring out more repubs and some of both parties voted for her just to get her out of here.

And there are more investigations forthcoming. Especially if the RNC does follow thru with coming here for audit over her 'expenses' accrued during the last national election. Some are calling for itemized listing to be published.

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Sounds like we'll find out by Nov. 21st, according to your SoS. Sooner would be nicer!

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It's pretty bad when her own party can't throw her under the bus fast enough and hard enough.

I wonder of the state Republican party will pile on and ensure one or more of those investigations will stick, and take her down.

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I agree with your title. Very disturbing.

Akmuckraker at mudflats is also covering this - along with other AK muck:

http://mudflats.wordpress.com/

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astral66

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