Alaskan Politics...?
 

Did anyone notice that Sen. Ted Stevens got re-elected after being convicted for seven (count 'em, SEVEN) felonies? I personally thought that the outcome was an interesting reflection on the judgment of Alaskans when it comes to politics :confused::confused::confused::confused::confused:

With a Republican Governor of the state on the VP ticket nationally, most people would vote for the whole ticket of Reps.

There are some quiet indications of voting irregularities in Alaska. Turnout was suspiciously low, for one thing. Perhaps Stevens committed his eighth felony on election night?

Bottom line is that either the Democrat wins when the absentees are counter...or Stevens wins and gets expelled during the lame duck session.

In that scenario, Palin would be required to call a special election within 60-90 days and could run for the seat herself ...and the circus with Palin as head clown would continue on the national stage.

Alaska has had a lot of election irregularities over the years. I wouldn't be surprised if something fishy was afoot.

On the one hand, any Republican victory (theoretically honestly earned) is a good thing in my mind.

On the other, I would hate for one of those victories to be this guy, who I have never heard one good thing about.

I didn't hear anything about a special election. I heard the governor appoints the seat. Since Palin is the governor, she can't appoint herself. But the commentator, I think it was Rachel Maddow, said she could step down and her lt. gov is elevated to gov and then he can appoint her to the Senate.

I'm not surprised he won, Stevens was talked about like the spigot for Alaskan funds. If voter turnout was low, it was probably due to people refusing to vote for Palin, Stevens, etc. rather than voting against them. Maybe the communities are too small to vote against one of your own without having to deal with it sometime down the road.

I think they have secret ballots up there. Theoretically, you could vote for Stevens and no one would be the wiser.

Everything i've heard or read says special election. It's different in Illinois, where Blagojevich will appoint someone

Finally and most importantly, there are absentee early and absentee ballots yet to be counted. Based on the known returns, Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com projects Begich to win by 3,000 votes.

I think it depends on when he resigns or is expelled.

If it happens during the lame duck session, an election is held right away (60-90 days) for a full six year term.

If it happens after the next Congress convenes in Jan, she would appoint an interim Senator and the election would be held in 2010 (for four years instead of six).

My guess is the voting tubes just got clogged...hopefully Begich will win once they clear up!

Something very similar happened in Kentucky in the 70's. Governor Wendell Ford (who's a badass mother in his own right) did the whole bait-and-switch appointment. When I heard Stephens won, that was the first thing I thought of.

Not to threadjack, but as an aside, I totally have a girl-crush on Rachel Maddow.

IDK, he has some fairly questionable past actions of his own...no felonies (yet) but lots of "special favors" nonpayment of taxes, etc.........

.....all this reads like a nice n' shiny "come to alaska" brochure

Does anyone know what the actual law in Alaska IS? I've heard both options out of the media, and both from sources that I consider fairly good news gatherers (NPR and NYT).

It may be that the specifics dictate an election or not, but I have no idea what the variables are or how they apply.

Sec. 15.40.145. Temporary appointment of United States senator

When a vacancy occurs in the office of United States senator, the governor may, at least five days after the date of the vacancy but within 30 days after the date of the vacancy, appoint a qualified individual to fill the vacancy temporarily until the results of the special election called to fill the vacancy are certified. If a special election is not called for the reasons set out in AS 15.40.140 , the individual shall fill the vacancy temporarily until the results of the next general election are certified.

Sec. 15.40.140. Condition and time of calling special election.

When a vacancy occurs in the office of United States senator or United States representative, the governor shall, by proclamation, call a special election to be held on a date not less than 60, nor more than 90, days after the date the vacancy occurs. However, if the vacancy occurs on a date that is less than 60 days before or is on or after the date of the primary election in the general election year during which a candidate to fill the office is regularly elected, the governor may not call a special election.

If the vacancy occurs near enough to the scheduled primary, Alaska goes through the regular election cycle. Otherwise, the gov. appoints a substitute senator to serve until the people choose a new senator in a special election. One murky issue here is whether Alaska law conflicts with Article I Amendment 17 of the US Constitution.

Keep in mind that as of Friday, there were 80,000 ballots left to count. That's about 1/4 of the votes cast.

I've lived in a town of 700 people for a few years and a town of 20,000 for a few more years, there wasn't anything anyone could do and have anyone be none the wiser...secret ballots or not :) There's not a lot of coming and going from places like these, and that's exacerbated by the geography.

You get 90 votes against the town's sugar daddy in a town of 700 people and let's all start guessing how difficult or likely it'd be for the rest to suss them out. If people could be sure that at the end of the election, it'd be 570 against him then the dynamic would be different. Of course, I'm only saying that people might have felt more comfortable staying home than voting, not that people refused to vote for someone else because of what I'm talking about. It's one thing to hold your tongue, it's another to go against the tribe.

But I haven't seen the turnout. If it was really low I think my suggestion makes sense.