Received an e-mail this morning from John Vezina, Finance director for Mark Begich. I threw some money their way to help with the ballot counting effort up there, and they were nice enough to send an update.
Hey!
Mark and Heather are busy coordinating our ballot verification activities and asked me to send you a quick update on our race.
First, for those of you who answered our call for financial help last week - thank you! We've raised more that $44,000 toward our $50,000 goal. It was a lot to ask from those who have already been so generous, but your response was fast, overwhelming, and has allowed us to monitor the statewide early vote and absentee vote count.
We could not have done it without you.
There are currently more than 81,000 early, absentee, and questioned ballots going through the validation process. More ballots are arriving each day, so that number will grow a bit. While currently trailing by 3257 votes, we did exceedingly well with the early votes counted so far (61% for Mark, 48% for Stevens), sent a terrific mail piece to every absentee voter, and question ballots in Alaska skew to Democrats. As you can see by going to http//action.begich.com/electoralmap, Mark did VERY well statewide and we're confident when the rest of the ballots (30% of the total) are counted, we'll come out on top.
This is a race we are fighting for and intend to win.
The Division of Elections (DOE) plans to count 2/3 of the outstanding ballots on Wednesday and those remaining on Friday. All oversees ballots have to be in by Wednesday, November 19th and the DOE plans to certify the election on Tuesday, November 25. A recount, should one be necessary, would occur after that. We will keep you updated on the status of the race after each step in the process.
Thank you,
John Vezina
Finance Director
Alaskans for Begich
907.297.2575
Don't have alot more to add. They seem to have a very positive attitude, and I'm going to check the bank balance to see if I can donate a little more.
As suggested by marchmoon, updated with comments from Nate:
analysis by Nate Silver, where he does a thourough analysis of the outstanding votes. Bottom line (emphasis mine)?
Combining the already-counted votes with our allocation of early, absentee and questioned ballots produces a projected total of 142,174 votes for Mark Begich and 139,258 for Ted Stevens -- a win for the Democrat by approximately 3,000 ballots
Of course, he cautions that we can really only call this a toss-up. There are a lot of variables...
Update: Additional Analysis by decisivemoment:
Nate Silver's numbers only assume about 60,000 absentee ballots. As of close of business Friday, the state of Alaska had more than 81,000 uncounted absentee ballots, with counting to begin this Wednesday, but with the deadline for receiving ballots postmarked on Election Day not until Friday, November 14 and the deadline for receiving ballots postmarked on Election Day in locations outside the US such as military bases not until Wednesday, November 19. By the time is all said and done, it would not be surprising to see 100,000 absentee ballots. Between that and Alaska's horrible Election Day weather this year, it starts to look like a plausible turnout.