Murkowski write-in votes standing up

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- The review of write-in ballots in Alaska's U.S. Senate race went slowly Wednesday but the results looked promising for incumbent Lisa Murkowski.

The state Division of Elections said it had gone through nearly 20 percent of the precincts and more than 80 percent of the write-in ballots were unchallenged for Murkowski, a Republican forced to run an independent write-in campaign after Tea Party-backed Joe Miller upset her in the primary, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

The newspaper said another 8.5 percent of the ballots were challenged by the Miller campaign but Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai ruled they should be counted for Murkowski. A court challenge is possible on those ballots.

Miller supporters were successful in challenging only 1.44 percent of the 19,203 ballots counted thus far.

"So far things look really good for us," Murkowski campaign manager Kevin Sweeney said.

Republican Joe Miller sued the Alaska Division of Elections, trying to stop it from counting misspellings on write-in ballots for candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

Miller's campaign said in the federal lawsuit filed Tuesday it wanted to stop the Elections Division from "counting or otherwise accepting as valid any write-in ballots in which the name of the candidate is spelt incorrectly," the Alaska Dispatch reported Wednesday.

The campaign also said it objected to an "11th-hour decision to change the rules that govern the election" in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage.

Lt. Gov. Craig Campbell, who oversees Alaska elections, and elections director Gail Fenumiai have been clear that they would count "minor misspellings" of Murkowski's name, the incumbent who was stunned during the Republican Party primary by Miller, a Tea Party favorite, then mounted a massive write-in effort.

Murkowski, who ran as an independent write-in candidate, started Tuesday up by as many as 13,439 votes, but by evening Miller had pulled to within at least 11,333 votes, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

Election officials said Miller had 81,195 votes and there were 92,528 write-in ballots. More than 12,000 absentee ballots were still to be counted. Election officials said they would dig into write-in ballots Wednesday.

Miller's attorney argued that "Murkowski" must be spelled correctly on all write-in ballots for any of them to count as votes. Campbell said Tuesday he was been advised by state Attorney General Dan Sullivan that such an interpretation is too narrow.

"It's a policy decision that minor misspellings will count," Campbell said.

Write-in ballots will be sorted into five categories, the Division of Elections said. Murkowski ballots will go in one pile. Ballots with a variation or misspelling of "Murkowski" will be divided into one of four subcategories based on challenges from Miller and Murkowski observers.