Wait For Alaska Senate Race Winner

After the polls closed Tuesday night, Joe Miller just Twitter "And what to expect."
Alaska can wait long enough to know who will represent the U.S. Senate.
Write-in votes, 40 percent of the votes cast in the race, now leads by 8,000 votes over Miller in the disputed race for the Senate. Democrat Scott McAdams is a distant third, with 24 percent of the vote.
That is surely good news for Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and his improbable bid to hold on to his seat with a write in campaign, but his victory is not safe.
Under state law, the Division of Elections has only write-in votes if they drive a race or are covered by half a percentage point behind the leader. Votes are counted in two weeks in Juneau. While 160 people signed up to be write-in candidates in the last days of the race, most of those votes are likely to Murkowski.
However, if the votes to Murkowski are spelled correctly is another matter. Election officials have not addressed clearly what is and do not count when it comes to spelling errors, although they have said "voter intent" is the bar to decipher the writing of the vote.
potential to help Murkowski, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled just before the election that poll workers might see a list of candidates in writing if requested or have any questions about the spelling.
"If a voter asks to see the writing on the list to help you vote, a poll worker can list," said Director of the Division of Elections Gail Fenumiai on a Monday evening e-mail. "If the voter is the list of questions that can help answer, then you will use. A couple of examples, if a voter needs help to identify the candidate who wishes to vote, the voter can show the list. If a voter asks how to spell the name of a particular candidate, the voter can be shown in the list. "
And as I write-ins were at the head late Tuesday, that account does not include the thousands of absentee ballots to be counted with the write-ins.
Nearly 16,000 ballots had been returned to the Elections Division Tuesday, Fenumiai said. About 14,000 ballots, which must have been postmarked by Tuesday, it could drip into the next two weeks.
The Division of Elections also received 416 votes faxed from a high of 1,244. A little more ballots by fax can also be added to what counts, Fenumiai said.
Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - the waiting game begins in the career of Alaska in the Senate