Alaska election officials still need to count 40,000 ballots from last week’s election, but it appears that Democrat Mark Begich, the two-term Mayor of Anchorage, will likely pull further ahead of incumbent Ted Stevens and be declared the winner of the state’s Senate seat, according to Alaska pollsters monitoring the race.
Begich overcame a 3,000-vote deficit this week when officials with the Alaska Division of Elections began the process Wednesday of counting roughly 50,000 absentee ballots from the Nov. 4 election. Begich pulled ahead of Stevens Wednesday by more than 800 votes and is on his way to become the first Alaska Democrat elected to the Senate since the 1970s.
Late Friday, Begich widened his lead over Stevens by more than 200 votes. He now leads the incumbent senator by 1,022 votes, according to the latest unofficial results released by the Division of Elections.
Alaska election officials said they expect to count another 10,000 ballots by Friday evening and finish counting the remaining 30,000 by Tuesday.
Gail Fenumiai, the director of the Alaska Division of Elections, said in a letter Thursday that the deadline to count the rest of the ballots is Nov. 19.
“The division has received several inquiries asking why it is taking so long to count ballots,” Fenumiai’s letter says. “With over 90,000 ballots that needed to go through the statutorily mandated review process, as well as conducting a duplicate voter review, the division is quite pleased that we can announce we are ahead of the statutory deadline for reviewing and counting the absentee and questioned ballots.”
Fenumiai said the schedule for counting the remaining ballots is:
• Region I, Juneau – will count all remaining questioned ballots on Friday, November 14th at 1:00pm and all remaining absentee ballots on Tuesday, November 18th at 9:00am.
• Region II, Anchorage – will count all remaining absentee and questioned ballots on Tuesday, November 18th at 10:00am.
• Region II, Wasilla – will count all remaining questioned ballots at 8:00am and remaining absentee ballots at 1:00pm on Friday, November 14th.
• Region III, Fairbanks – will count all remaining questioned ballots and possibly some of the remaining absentee ballots on Friday, November 14th at 11:00am. Any absentee ballots that do not get counted on November 14th will be counted on Monday, November 17th at 10:00am.
• Region IV, Nome – will count all remaining absentee and questioned ballots on Friday, November 14th at 8:00am.
Most of those uncounted absentee and questionable ballots (referred to as provisional ballots in other states) yet to be counted are from parts of the state that heavily favored Begich. At least 15,000 ballots in Anchorage, an area where Begich was leading Stevens, still need to be counted. And 9.000 more absentee ballots from southeastern panhandle of Alaska also backed Begich.
In a statement posted on his campaign website Thursday, Begich said he knew “this would be a close race.”
After watching the votes [Thursday], I remain cautiously optimistic,” he said. “As I have said before, we ran an aggressive campaign, especially when it came to early voting and absentee. From what we’re seeing, thousands of Alaskans, like me, did come out and vote early. I’m confident that Alaskans, like the rest of the country, want a new direction in Washington, and ultimately that will be reflected in the results.”
Two aides to Stevens, the longest serving Republican in the U.S. Senate, said it is all but certain that the 84-year-old lawmaker will mount a legal battle and will almost certainly demand a recount if he loses the race to Begich and will likely call into question the integrity of some absentee and questionable ballots if the final outcome remains close.
Additionally, Alaska Republican Party leaders are advising Stevens not to concede the race even after all the ballots have been counted, these aides said.
If Stevens or Begich loses the election, the losing candidate can demand a recount, which election officials said they expect. Additionally, a consortium of 10 registered voters can also petition the Division of Elections for a recount if the election is won by .5% of the total votes cast.
Earlier this week, one of Stevens own pollsters said Begich is all but certain to win the election.
“I don’t think Stevens can come back,” Alaska pollster David Dittman told the Huffington Post, adding that remaining uncounted ballots will help Begich “increase his lead.”
Ivan Moore, an Anchorage pollster who has worked closely with Democrats, agreed.
He told the Associated Press Friday that he doesn’t “see a significant bloc of votes that’s remaining for Ted to get him back into this.”
Democrats and Republicans are watching the hotly contested senate race closely. If Begich prevails it will push Democrats closer to a 60-vote filibuster proof majority. Democrats would need to defeat Republicans in the still undecided aces in Minnesota and Georgia.
Stevens was convicted by a Washington, D.C. jury two weeks ago on seven felony counts of making false statements on Senate financial disclosure forms related to $250,000 in gifts he received from oil-field services company Veco Corp. and the company’s former Chief Executive Bill Allen.
Several high-ranking Republicans called on Stevens, 84, to resign. But the embattled senator refused and said he would appeal his conviction.
If Stevens is declared the winner of Alaska’s senate race he will face an automatic ethics investigation and it’s likely his colleagues will secure the two-thirds vote needed to expel him.
