Joe Miller Accuses Alaska Official of Bias in Election Oversight

During a blogger conference call on Thursday, Alaska GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller accused Alaska's lieutenant governor, Craig Campbell, of bias.

Miller, of course, is in the middle of a battle involving the counting of write-in votes for his opponent, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

During the call, Miller said:

"There are a number of fights that are going to have to be undertaken, in part, due to the fact that the division of elections [is] headed up by the lieutenant governor.

"The lieutenant governor is effectively the same [as] what you might see in other states as the secretary of state. His statements are policy. He was appointed by Murkowski . . . has connections to the Murkowski family. In fact, when he, last summer, spoke at the time Sean Parnell was sworn\ in as governor, spent five or 10 minutes praising the Murkowski family. It was really kind of a curious thing given the lack of popularity at the time of Frank Murkowski.

"But in any event, it appears that his bias is playing out in the decisions that he's making, especially those that are directly contrary to the law.

One of the decisions Miller complained about on the call involves the decision not to count the votes of people who wrote in the name "Joe Miller." Miller says Alaska statute requires those votes to be counted.

Update: Reached for comment, Campbell's press secretary, Renee Limoge, tells me, "It's unacceptable for anyone in this process to call into question the character of Lieutenant Governor Campbell."

Regarding the question of whether or not write-in votes for Miller will count, Campbell issued a statement Thursday saying, "To provide clarity on the issue of write-in votes for U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller, if the write-in votes are cast properly, they will be counted."