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.
As I don a flame retardant suit, let me say that if a potential candidate makes the cut with the voters by qualifying as a write-in, and people want to vote for that person, should their votes not count because of spelling when that decision is left to the judgment of one or a few people judging ballots in any given precinct? I’m just trying to look at this objectively. I detest Murmooski, but this is an issue of process and not personality or preference.
Suppose for a moment that major voter fraud occurred in a primary and our guy got the shaft. Considering how many “plants” the rats have put into the stream, this is not beyond the realm of possibility. If that happened, and we successfully undertook to get our guy qualified as a write-in as an independent or whatever, and he didn’t have an easy last name like ‘Jones’ but had a difficult last name, would we want the judgment as to the voter’s intent left to biased judges or would we want an opportunity for the voter to get it right?
I don’t know Alaska law and what all is possible, but I do know how it feels for my vote not to count, and I do know that election officials have too much power in terms of decision-making. Look what they’ve done to the military. I don’t have a knowledge base to know the right answer or even what all is possible for an answer in this case, but I’m not sure I want to see the issue dismissed out of hand altogether. The shoe can easily be on the other foot.
That all said, Go, Joe, GO!!!!!!!!! :)