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Published January 26, 2017
This is a rush transcript from "Your World With Neil Cavuto," December 6, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Calls today for Joe to go.
Alaska's Democratic Senator Mark Begich says that it is time for Joe Miller to drop his legal challenge to last month's elections. Unofficial results now show that Senator Lisa Murkowski the winner.
But Joe ain't going anywhere.
Joe Miller joining me by phone.
Now, we called his opponent, Lisa Murkowski. She wasn't available.
Joe, essentially, what Senator Begich is saying is, give it up.
You are not. Why not?
SENATORIAL CANDIDATE JOE MILLER, R-ALASKA: You know, that is just one more voice in Alaska saying that.
Frankly, I would think that Alaskans would want to make sure that the election upholds the integrity of the process. You know, as we have mentioned before on your show, this is not about winning or losing. This is about making sure that the rule of law is applied, and that this changing legal standard that was suddenly applied after the election is not allowed to hold today.
We have a law. It needs to be followed. And, at the end of the day, who knows what it is going to end up with as far as the votes go. But I think that is important to all Alaskans. And I'm going to continue to fight on their behalf.
CAVUTO: Joe, right now, you officially trail by 10,000 votes. I know, of those 10,000, I think it's something in the vicinity of 8,000 that you are disputing, either through misspellings or false intentions, hard to prove.
But let's say they were all thrown out. Now we are down to 2,000. How do you make that up? Can you make it up? Are all ballots not counted now? What are you waiting for?
MILLER: That is a great question. And that is one that I think people need to understand a little clearer, is that we really don't know what the total number of votes undisputed are between Murkowski and I.
You know, there are a couple of things at play here. One, a much more lenient standard was used in counting the votes for Senator Murkowski. She had a hand count. We had an automated tally count. It's undisputed that more votes are cast, more votes are counted when a hand count is applied, rather than an automated tally, because automatic tallies exclude a number of ballots.
And that is going to be in the hundreds at least and maybe even thousands. We just simply do not know. In addition to that, there are a number of things that occurred during the process that disallowed us from challenging ballots that should have been challenged.
So, that uncontested number is actually going to go down just by the standard applies. And now we have time to prepare. You might recall that the lieutenant governor actually advanced the time for the count by over a week. And that had a significant impact on our ability to move forward with the same team to do the review necessary.
And what we ended up having was a circus, effectively. And I think Alaskans now expect a better process. If the court acts quickly, we can get that under way. We can get the count done, and Alaskans can see where this race stands.
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: But, the meantime, Joe...
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: I'm sorry, but are you concerned, as Senator Begich pointed out, that, whatever your reasons -- and they might be perfectly justified - - Alaska stands a pretty good likelihood now of having just one senator for a while, when some of the biggest issues of our time are being debated?
MILLER: Yes. And I guess the question becomes, is that one extra vote going to be used to continue to grow government, continue the largess, to continue earmarks, to basically continue the fiscal destruction of the nation?
And, frankly, I don't think we need that. But, you know, getting more to the point, I don't think anybody has actually proven there is going to be adverse impact. Hopefully, this process can be resolved quickly and before the January swearing-in date.
We tried to get this under way immediately. The second that the written standards were announced, the next day, actually, we filed suit. And, incidentally, the lieutenant governor even commented himself at a press conference that -- shortly before the count or during the count, that, likely, the issue of the standard would be resolved by the courts.
So, we have tried to move this along very quickly. But, again, what this is about, it is not personal ambition, as Senator Begich would maintain.
CAVUTO: All right.
MILLER: It is about making sure legal standards are applied. It's about making sure that things are done properly here in Alaska.
CAVUTO: OK.
MILLER: And we're going to continue that fight.
CAVUTO: Joe Miller, thank you very much.
MILLER: Thank you, Neil. Appreciate it.
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