Alaska Senate: Murkowski Has Solid Lead, but Miller Wants Hand Recount

Sen. Lisa Murkowski appeared Wednesday to have an insurmountable lead after a week of counting write-in votes in the Alaska Senate race -- but it's not over.

Republican Joe Miller, trailing Murkowski by 10,400 votes, says the state's computerized voting system is "suspect" and that the returns from the Nov. 2 election should be counted again -- by hand, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

All that's left to be tallied are about 600 absentee ballots from Alaskans in the military and overseas. Even if Miller prevailed in invalidating challenged write-in votes with misspellings or extra writing on them, Murkowski would still hold a 2,247-vote margin, according to the Anchorage newspaper.

The incumbent, who was headed back to Alaska from Washington on Wednesday, ran as an independent write-in candidate after losing the state Republican primary to Miller, a little-known lawyer until he won the endorsement of Sarah Palin and the tea party movement. Palin, former governor of the 49th state, is a political rival of the Murkowski family. Besides that, she found Miller to be more conservative than the moderate two-term senator.

Murkowski is expected to claim victory once the once the remaining absentee ballots are tallied. If she is certified the winner, she would be the first write-in candidate to be elected to the Senate since Storm Thurmond did so in 1954. Democrat Scott McAdams was third.

Miller apparently will fight on. He has two lawsuits pending over misspelled names on some ballots and over access to voter rolls. The Division of Elections says Alaska doesn't do recounts entirely by hand and relies instead on optical scan equipment -- so that could lead to another legal battle, the Daily News 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," Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto said. Previously Miller said he would cease contesting the election if it became obvious that he didn't have the votes.