ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- Lisa Murkowski was still ahead of Joe Miller, though by a slimmer margin, as absentee ballots were counted Tuesday in Alaska's U.S. Senate race.
Murkowski, the incumbent Republican who ran as an independent write-in candidate, started the day up by as many as 13,439 votes, but by evening Miller, a Tea Party-backed GOP candidate, 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. There were still more than 12,000 absentee ballots to be counted and election officials said they intend to start going over the write-in ballots Wednesday to determine what names are written on them.
The Washington Post said Miller has asked the federal court to block election officials from using their discretion in determining a voter's intent. Miller seeks to have only those clearly marked "Murkowski" or "Lisa Murkowski" count toward his opponent's total.
Miller also has grumbled that moving up the counting of the write-ins gave him less time to get his legal team and monitors assembled, and that a court decision allowing voters to see a list of write-in candidates as they went in to vote was fair.
The two opposing camps have legal teams monitoring the counting and are prepared for possible court challenges.
Both sides said Miller's gain on Tuesday, 1,882 votes, was no surprise.
UPI
