Miller's lawyer warns of vote tampering by Murkowski campaign

A lawyer for Joe Miller--the Tea Party-backed candidate locked in a close Republican primary race with Sen. Lisa Murkowski--complained Sunday to the director of the Alaska Division of Elections about possible vote "tampering" by a Murkowski-designated, ballot counting observer.

In the letter, Miller attorney Thomas Van Flein accuses the observer, who he calls Mike, of accessing the Division of Elections computer database for 20 minutes to "check voter records." That Mike had access to private data was bad enough, Van Flein said in a letter, but the Diebold voter software used by the state is also vulnerable to voter hijacking. Miller cites a a 2007 election security report that said such access could lead to "a large scale election fraud" and could happen in less than a minute of unfettered access.

"Does this not require a hand count of each ballot at this point, or an IT audit to verify that no information was accessed, no software installed and no virus exists in the system?" Van Flein wrote in his letter to elections officials.

Van Flein, also a family lawyer for former Gov. Sarah Palin, said the observer used an iPhone to text while observing the count, claiming that the observer could have been "texting" private voter information. Mike was also observed writing notes by hand about voters, Van Flein said.

As a result, Van Flein is requesting troopers be posted at each regional office until the ballots are counted.

In a surprising upset in the Republican primary last Tuesday night, Miller currently leads Murkowski by about 1,700 votes. Both campaigns have observers watching the absentee and question ballot process. At least one of those Murkowski observes is from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which, the Miller camp claims, gives Murkowski an unfair advantage. It's not known if Mike is from the NRSC.

On Saturday the Miller campaign claimed somebody was making calls to Alaskans who voted with absentee ballots in the primary, asking them who they voted for. A Miller spokesman alleged the intent of the calls was of "nefarious purposes" and blamed the NRCS.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amanda(at)alaskadispatch.com