Alaska challenges galore: how to spell Murkowski

The Alaska Daily News reports.

I was hardly alone in predicting this might happen, but I'll say it anyway: I saw this coming.

Apparently, the Miller team is challenging every mis-spelled "Murkowski." On Martin Kaste's report for NPR last night, he mentioned that some of the challenges boiled down to difficult-to-read cursive handwriting. (New way to motive kids to work on handwriting: "You're practicing handwriting to save democracy!")

As a legal strategy, it makes sense: If the Miller team is going to make a legal challenge to the election in court, they need to make as many challenges as possible now. Once in the courtroom, they won't be able to add more challenges. So at this point, they're doing what they need to be doing.

I'm also curious, from a legal perspective, whether there is a Bush v. Gore type issue with equal protection in how votes are counted. Voters were told (or thought they were told) that some mis-spellings, and maybe even gross deviations from the proper spelling would be tolerated. And now it's looking like the counting methods may become far more strict. I wonder if there's a voter lawsuit in the mix? Look for it: the Murkowski camp will have, as a party to their suit, a voter who wrote "Lisa M" or "Lisa Merkowsky" on the ballot, suing against disenfranchisement. I mean, clearly they will have testimony from people saying: 1. I was told that Lisa M or "something close" would work; 2. I wrote "Lisa M" because I intended to vote for Lisa M, and 3. everyone else who wrote that intended to vote for her. But I think they will find voters to join the suit. Anyway, more to come, I'm sure.