November 10, 2010

Remember how I thought Joe Miller (the Republican senatorial candidate for Alaska) and his supporters were being babies and "unsportsmanlike" because they tried to register 100 people to be write-in candidates, in order to create a long-list of write-in candidates on the ballot so that it's harder for voters to find his opponent's name (more here)? Well, now Joe Miller has filed a federal lawsuit in which he argues that ballots that have Lisa Murkowski's name spelled wrong (i.e., the voters spelled her name wrong when writing her name down as their write-in choice) should not count in the official tally. Miller asked the judge to stop the state from making a judgment on a voter's intentions. He says that state law allows no leeway for other spellings. 

Lieutenant Governor Campbell, who oversees Alaska elections, has indicated that he will accept minor misspellings of Murkowksi's name as long as the "voter intent" is clear. He said, "The court have been very clear for the last 25 years that voter intent is important. You do not want to disenfranchise voters over a technicality." However, Miller's lawyer argues that nothing in the state law allows for that kind of discretion and the law does not allow the election board to weigh voter intent. Miller and his lawyer say the law says that a write-in vote shall only be counted "if the name, as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy, of the candidate or the last name of the candidate is written in the space provided." I'm no expert on Alaska law, but I wouldn't be surprised if the intent of that law was that when they say "as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy" that they do not mean 'It needs to be spelled absolutely correct' but 'The write-in candidate needs to have a declaration of candidacy' (i.e., they need to have registered to be a write-in candidate). I can't imagine the intent was to disenfranchise voters because they used an "e" instead of an "o" in someone's last name, and other than that minor spelling, it's obvious who their vote is for. 

Miller, always talking the high road, has also accused Lt. Gov. Campbell of bias, saying he was appointed by Lisa Murkowski's father (Frank Murkowski, who was governor at the time). Frank Murkowski appointed Campbell in 2003 to be the commissioner of the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. Then-Governor Sarah Palin is the one that chose Campbell to be in the position to take over the Lt. Governorship when she resigned as Governor in 2009. (Full Story)

This is so ridiculous. Miller and his lawyer are making "voter intent" to seem so much more sinister than it really is. It's not like the election board is looking at ballots saying "Hmm, this person voted for Miller, but I can tell by the wobbliness of the pen mark that they weren't certain in their vote. They probably meant to vote for Murkowski. Add one more vote to Murkowski's tally." Instead it's more like, "Oh, this person wrote in Merkowski. I think it's safe to assume they meant Murkowski." Miller should be ashamed of himself.