I don’t think the poster is correct. If they hand these lists out and the voter still doesn’t spell Murmooski’s name right, there may eventually be a ruling that it doesn’t count if misspelled.
If Alaska has a law that allows registration of write-in candidates, and Joe Blow goes to the polls with no intent to vote for Murmooski, what is the big deal? And if Joe Blow goes to the polls with the intention to vote for Murmooski, they’re going to count it for Murmooski whether Joe Blow spells it exactly correct anyway, short of a court ruling otherwise.
The problem, as I see it, arises with the really stupid voter who wants to vote for someone other than Murmooski but thinks the hand-out list is something he’s supposed to write in to complete the ballot, and then checks another candidate’s name as well - the one he actually wants to vote for. It seems much more likely that a dumbass rat druggie or welfare type would do that than a conservative, so the rat candidate is the one most likely to suffer as I see it because if you vote for two, neither counts.
Write-in candidates have to register for the election the same as other candidates. The difference is, they for whatever reason missed the deadline to file (late entrant) or for other reason they did not qualify for the ballot.
At the time they register they provide their name...and every variation of their name that is reasonably close and that someone might write in.
Bob Jones
Bob Joans
Bob Johnes
Robert Jones
Robert Jons
etc.
As long as the registrar feels it is a close approximation to the name, those variations are accepted.
Any write-in candidates out there, this is a common mistake that is made - they only give their name as they normally spell it. If a write-in candidate has a chance to get the vote, they could lose it because of failure to provide multiple spellings.
The part about a list of write-in candidates going out still seem to me to be the equivalent of a published ballot and should be outside the rules.
To the person in this thread that said all eligible voters should be on the write-in list, that is not correct. Only those that went through the write-in process and registered as a write-in and in time are write-in candidates. The rest are just citizens not eligible to be elected in the current race.