Wednesday - November 10, 2010

My 2¢

Lisa Murkowski is the incumbent Republican Senator for Alaska. She was defeated in the primaries by Joe Miller, a Republican who has the backing of the Tea Party Express people. Miller’s name went on the ballot as the Republican candidate. So good so far.

Murkowski was not happy being defeated in the primaries, so she decided to run on her own. Not as the representative of some independent party, but as a write-in candidate. So she campaigned as much as she could, but in the end her name was not directly visible on the ballot. To get around this, she asked that voters be given a list of the write-in candidates.

I have never voted for a write-in, so I didn’t know how the process worked. I’ve read the detailed voting results of some of our local elections, and seeing votes for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck lead me to believe that other people don’t either. Yes, it’s likely that you can take a pencil and write in whatever name you want, and somewhere someone is going to tabulate that vote. But even if Mickey Mouse won 98% of the popular vote, he would not win the election. Because he was not registered as a candidate. That’s how New Jersey’s system works, and it’s how Alaska’s system works as well. If you want to be an actual official candidate, you and your people have to go around door to door and collect signatures on a petition. Once X number of people have signed a statement saying that they think you should be a viable choice for the elected position, you’re in. Well, you have to turn in those forms, someone in the election office will spot check at least a few of them for validity (one hopes), and make sure that you have enough signatures to meet your state’s required minimum number. I bet there’s a fee and some sort of licensing involved too, at least in NJ. But that’s all it takes.

Prior to this election, Alaska (and for all I know, New Jersey as well) had no law that said that the voters could ask for or be given a list of the valid write-in candidates. This was wrong. Not fair. Every valid candidate must be treated equally by the elections board. Granted, not every candidate can get his or her name on the ballot. Each state must somewhere have a law that figures out who gets on it. Perhaps it’s based on the number of signatures collected. That would work; if I get 5 million people to sign off on me, then you’re darn tootin’ my name should show up on the thing. If you want to run, and only need 50 signatures, and you turn in 52, and 5002 other people also turn in 52, then your name is going on the write-in list. So somewhere a decision is made, a law is written, long in advance, that only 4 or 6 or 8 or whatever number of names, and the political parties that they are associated with, show up on the main ballot for that office.

So Murkowski petitioned the Alaskan Elections Board to have a write-in list drawn up, and either distributed or given out on demand. And they agreed. Great. Then a lower court shot that decision down. It doesn’t matter why ( it was a spurious charge of advocacy), because hours later the Alaskan Supreme Court turned that over, and said that such a list was right and proper. But to play Solomon and cut the baby in half, they decided that the affiliated political parties would not be mentioned. I disagree. This was wrong. If you have a ballot that shows the political party for some candidates, then you have to have a full ballot - that includes all the valid write-ins - that shows the parties for all of them. Fair is fair. But that’s a side issue.

So comes Election Day in Alaska, and it’s a mess. With a population of less than three quarters of a million, there are only a few hundred thousand actual voters. Maybe they count votes up there by making piles of caribou antlers, and whoever has the biggest pile wins. Maybe ballots are sent in by dogsled from the outlying areas. Whatever, it’s a mess, and they are still counting the ballots up there. Thank God they didn’t invite Chad from the 2000 Florida election.

Linda Murkowski may or may not have the lead right now, depending on who you listen to. But Joe Miller has filed suit to ensure that none of this mysterious “voter intent” crap gets done, and I think he is right to do so. Given that the voters had, or at least could have had, a copy of the write-in list right in front of them when they voted, whether they voted at a polling station or by absentee ballot, Miller has sued that Alaska enforce it’s laws as written, and that only votes for Murkowski that are spelled “Murkowski” be counted.

Joe Miller’s campaign filed a lawsuit yesterday, asking that the Alaska Division of Elections be allowed to count only correctly spelled write-ins for Sen. Lisa Murkowski as votes for her.  The campaign requested that a hearing be set for this afternoon.

After 27,000 absentee ballots were counted yesterday, the gap between Miller and write-in votes had narrowed to 11,333 from 13,439. But with only 12,400 absentee ballots remaining, it’s unlikely that Miller will close the gap, making the outcome of the lawsuit crucial.

The Miller campaign is asserting that Alaskan law only permits correct spellings, citing this passage from state law, “A vote for a write-in candidate … shall be counted if the oval is filled in for that candidate and 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.”

Hey, if you are too stupid to be unable to transcribe M U R K O W S K I from the write-in page to your ballot, then you’re really too stupid to vote. Naturally, the left winger side sees this as an attempt as “disenfranchisement” ( a word now as overused and meaningless as “racism” ), and how Alaska has a long history of attempting to discern voter intent. Hey, Colorado has a long history of murder. So does Los Angeles. Does that make it Ok?

Alaskan lieutenant governor Craig Campbell said “The courts have been very clear for the last 25 years that voter intent is important. You do not want to disenfranchise voters over a technicality.”

If no list had been allowed, then “mircosky” “morecowsti” or even “Linda M” ought to have been allowed. Some crystal ball gazing for Intent. But the law says “as it appears” and “or the last name” (Another side issue: what happens to that law when Alaska has 2 write-ins both named Smith?), so the thing to do is follow the law. If I were an Alaskan who wanted to vote for this woman, I would have learned how to spell her name. Or written it down on a scrap of paper. Or kept one of the hundreds of flyers she sent me in the mail with her name on it, so I could fill out my absentee ballot correctly. If my handwriting sucked, I’d practice writing her name until it was Palmer Manuscript perfect. Because EVERYONE in the country knows full well - especially since the 2000 elections - that if you want your vote to count, you make doubly damn sure your ballot is filled out perfectly before you turn it in.

Under state law, the write-in oval must be filled in and either a candidate’s last name or the name as it appears on her candidacy declaration has to be written in. Miller’s attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said he intends to hold the state to that standard.

Election officials made clear Monday that they will use discretion in determining voter intent where the written name “appears to be a variation or misspelling” of Murkowski or Lisa Murkowski. Van Flein called that practice unacceptable.

Van Flein filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking a federal judge to uphold that law.

You’re damn right. “Discretion” is a double-speak word that means “cheating”. Do it right, or it doesn’t count. Period. You can’t “almost land” an airplane, and you can’t be “nearly pregnant”. You is, or you ain’t.

Now, some other voices are saying that Team Miller made things too complicated for the poor stupid voters there, because 160 people were on the list of write-ins. So what? Horse apples! Has anyone in Alaska ever heard of alphabetization? Or even of looking through the list looking for names that start with M?

As a third side issue, this is one more reason for a digital voting machine. Given a decent EPROM chip and some RAM, you can have thousands of candidates running for every electable position. So what? It takes no real space. It’s just another counter in the code. Add a MORE button, or a scroll key, under each column on the display. Easy.

So don’t expect any certifiable results from the land of Palin yet. When Miller wins his suit they’ll have to go and count everything all over again.

Um, what about the Democrat who was running for their Senate seat? Scott McAdams pulled in 24% of the vote, so he’s long out of it. And no matter how you spell it, Murkowski is still ahead.

If Sen. Lisa Murkowski emerges as the victor in when the Alaska Senate race results are fully tallied – as seems increasingly likely – she will have pulled off a bigger upset than her main opponent, Republican Joe Miller, did when he defeated her in the GOP primary two months ago.

She would become the first person elected to the Senate as a write-in candidate since Strom Thurmond in 1954 – the only time it’s been done.

As of Wednesday afternoon, “write-in” had 41 percent of the vote to Mr. Miller’s 34 percent (Democrat Scott McAdams had 24 percent) – presumably a big enough cushion to stave off legal challenges, though it will take a long time for the vote to be certified and write-in ballots tabulated. A final ruling may not happen for weeks.

In a count of more than 27,000 absentee and early cast ballots counted Tuesday, Miller showed a gain of 2,106 votes on the write-in candidates. Nearly 12,400 absentee ballots remain to be counted, plus a similar amount of questioned ballots to be reviewed.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/10/2010 at 12:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Politics •  
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