Alaska Update

The Alaska Division of elections has spent the last week basically checking all those absentee and early ballots for duplicate voters and they are finally ready to start counting some votes- the day after tomorrow (Wednesday). There are now almost 91,000 uncounted absentee, early, and question ballots, and they expect to get about 50,000 counted on Wednesday.

From the press release:

"By law, the Division has until November 19th to review and count these ballots....the division feels it is in the best interest of the public, political parties, and the candidates to count ballots early."

http://www.elections.alaska.gov/files/08GENR/2008_General_Ballot_Counting_Schedule.pdf
Now in my mind the only reasonable definition of counting ballots early is counting them before the polls have closed. Someone at the Division of elections is misunderstanding the meaning of the phrase "has until November 19th".

The risks presented by "double-voting" are also greatly exaggerated. There were about 25 of these double votes found in the review of the primary, and the division has since been making a very big deal about it. 25 double votes throughout the state is not systematic voter fraud and furthermore, the division proved such irregularities will turn up in the post election review. There should be no need to hold the results captive.

Also, the number of question ballots is now over 20,000, or about 7%. To put this in perspective, there are reportedly about 30,000 question ballots in Minnesota, just 1%. Minnesota and Alaska both use optical scan machines.