Stevens bids Senate farewell

Begich lead over Stevens grows

Here's the latest from the ADN.

"Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich's lead over Sen. Ted Stevens is growing in today's ballot count in the race for U.S. Senate. The latest numbers, issued just before 1 p.m., show Begich up by 2,374 votes.

The Division of Elections expects to release more numbers between 4 and 5 p.m."

Begich leads by three votes (UPDATE: Make that 814 votes)

That's right, folks ... three votes.

That's with just over half of the absentee/early ballots counted today. The Divisions of Elections is saying they'll have the rest counted in the next week. By law, the have to be done by Nov. 19. After that, a recount is about certain.

Trivia question: what happens if it's a tie? (Hint: this actually happened in a legislative race in 2006)

UPDATE: Begich's lead is now up to 814 votes. Thanks to Liz Villareal for paying attention.

Will early voters decide important AK races?

Tomorrow is the day the state Division of Elections will count the majority of early and absentee votes. It's astonishing that so many Alaskans (more than 90,000) voted early or absentee this year. Homer shattered the record for early voting, as did most other communities statewide.  

The big question on most Alaskans' minds tomorrow will be whether or not Mark Begich ends up with a lead over Stevens when the counting is done. With a relatively slim lead of 3,353 votes, the Stevens camp is likely nervous right about now. Although it remains to be seen whether they will outperform the Republicans in turning out early voters, one thing is for sure - the state Democratic Party put on the full court press this year attempting to get their people to vote early. I am not, and have never been, a registered Democrat but I got at least a dozen snazzy, full-color (and expensive) mailers from the ADP throughout the campaign season, imploring me to vote early. We'll see if the effort payed off.  

One question floating around the newsroom today was this: is it even remotely possible for Ethan Berkowitz, who is down by a seemingly insurmountable 8-point margin to Don Young, to make up the difference with early/absentee votes?

Shannyn Moore has a good post on the subject here, describing the scene today of various campaign operatives fretting over the vote-counting. 

"It feels like 2000 Bush-Gore around here," she says.

More tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a link to the division's official count.