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.

Lisa M... mis-spells her own name in ad!

It's true. In her first post-GOP write-in ad, her name is spelled incorrectly.

http://gawker.com/5644250/write+in-candidate-lisa-murkowski-misspells-name-in-very-first-ad

Unfortunately, it's made even worse by the fact that her name is used in a URL for her campaign website. A fast-moving individual, apparently not a fan of Lisa M., quickly setup a mocking page at the incorrect site. http://lisamurkwski.com/ is the "incorrect," but funnier, site.

More on Lisa M

A few followup items on Lisa Murkowski's write-in campaign for Senate in Alaska.

First, Slate's Explainer discusses the "How badly can you spell Murkowski but still have your vote count?" issue: What Happens If You Misspell A Write-In Vote? An interesting read, echoing what I discussed. From a journalistic perspective, I'm interested that they spelled out the "dirty version" of Sekula-Gibbs' name, rather than hinting at it.

Second, Rick Hasen on his Election Law Blog discusses why she's running as a write-in Republican rather than run "on ballot" as an Independent or pick up the standard of a third party. (There's no link to just the article).

Hasen notes that no less a political eminence gris as Cokie Roberts proffered a plausibly political, but clearly incorrect explanation for Murkowski running a write-in campaign. Roberts suggested on NPR that Murkowski made a decision to run as a Republican, rather than as an independent to show that she's the real Republican candidate, and will be a Republican if she is re-elected to the Senate. Plausible, but shows an interestingly myopic vision of election law.

Maybe not even myopic; perhaps completely ignorant of the more likely reason: Murkowski didn't have a choice. Murkowski wasn't allowed to run as a Libertarian, reports Political Wire (It's unclear from the report whether she requested either the ballot line or the meeting); and Alaska law prevents her from officially entering the race as an independent candidate. Alaska, like many states, has what is sometimes known as a "Sore Loser Law," that, one way or the other, prevents a candidate that loses a party primary from switching parties or running as an independent. Accordingly, Alaska requires that independent candidates must have registered before August 24, the day of the primary election, which prevents a loser from just adding themselves to the ballot. In Alaska, a losing candidate may only run as a write-in, unless another party had an officially-registered candidate who then withdraws; in that case, anyone may step into that candidate's shoes. Other than the Democrats and Republicans, only the Libertarians were running a candidate... thus, once the Libertarians spurned her, her only choice was to run as a write-in.

And, sorry, Cokie, write-ins don't have a party. (Although I agree that Murkowski's best bet is to run as the "real Republican" and hope that Joe Miller has an "I-dabbled-in-Witchcraft" moment.)


http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/08/25/alaska-politics-blog-suggests-new-candidates-could-conceivably-enter-u-s-senate-race/

The Big Murkowski: Broad vision of "intent" in write-in ballots

Think back to November, 2000... in the contested election between Al Gore and George W. Bush, in Florida, there was a little controversy over "voter intent." While most people remember "hanging chads," that argument was a single facet of a more complicated issue: On a ballot, how do we know what the voter intended to do? Thus, we argue about a hanging chad--did the voter intend to vote for the candidate, or did the voter begin to vote for the candidate and changed their mind, leaving the chad still attached?

Well, quick, spell Lisa Murcowski Murkowsky Murkowski. Murkowski (I checked) is the recently defeated incumbent in a Republican primary for Senate in Alaska. Word on the street is that she may run a write-in campaign. In a tough Bush v. Gore world, imagine the conflicts over a requirement that a written-in candidate's name be spelled perfectly, or how to count an ambiguously-spelled name Apparently, in Alaska, even though the Murkowski family has held a statewide political office for 20+ years leaves open the very definite possibility that her name will be spelled wrong often enough that it might affect the election results.

Or not. According to this report in the Alaska Daily News, the "Big Murkowski" has been thinking about this very problem, and the Alaska Election Board has been pondering it as well. Apparently, just writing "Lisa" probably isn't enough, but "Lisa M" would probably register. What about Lisa N? They've also ruled out stamps and stickers with her name, although I'm not sure what they'd do if someone went ahead and did that--placed a little "Lisa M" sticker on the ballot. Not sure what this says about the spelling skills of Alaskans--as I mentioned, there's been a Murkowski in a statewide office for the past 30 years or so, you'd think they could spell it.

Also, it seems strange to simply allow "Lisa M." I would think that voters should at least make an attempt at spelling her name--allowing Lisa M in advance seems like a big cop-out to me.

(Athough, in full disclosure, I can't spell Kulongoski without looking it up). I am also reminded of a funny-ish story from Texas in 2006, when Shelley Sekula-Gibbs ran for Congress, and failed. Ms. Sekula-Gibbs, you almost certainly won't remember, was the Michelle Bachmann-esque crazy who took over Tom DeLay's seat for a few weeks after he resigned. She promptly lost the seat, although the timing of DeLay's resignation required that she run by a write-in campaign. (She was famously insane and awful; at one point in her 7-week reign, most of which was after the election, she sent out a press release touting her attendance record to meetings).  Wonkette reported with relish both her antics and the unfortunate spelling capabilities of her constituency, noting that among the written-in spelling variations were, 

"Kelly Segula Gibbs, Snelly Gibbr, Schikulla Gibbs, Sheila Gibbs, Shelly Schulla Gibbs, Shelly Gibkula and, by someone who obviously never wanted the joy of using the machine to end, ShelleySkulaGibbsssss." 

Those were the name accepted by the Elections Office. Another name (unclear if it was accepted as a vote) was clearly NSFW. I've redacted the letters, but you can take a guess (or follow the Wonkette link):

"The absolute best one — perhaps the best political name of all time — was (we are not lying) “Shelly DraculaC[XXX] Gibs.” It counted. And we will say it over and over again until the end of DraculaC[XXX]’s all-too-brief term."