It isn’t voter fraud. When one or two letters are misspelled, or if the intent is clear, it isn’t vote fraud to count these. In fact, it would be disenfranchising to not allow these votes to count. The sad thing is that he could have won...and fairly easy at that. He is the type we need in Washington, but he was a flawed candidate.
“It isn’t voter fraud.”
Say wha...??
“Our [Miller’s] campaign has sworn affidavits identifying:
**unsecured ballot boxes,
**other precincts where numerous ballots appear to be in the same handwriting,
**others where there is 100% voter turnout
**and still other precincts where the ballots were sent to the Division of Elections presorted by U.S. Senate candidate.”
If Alaska state law says that the Write-in votes MUST be spelled properly, then misspelled votes MUST BE THROWN OUT. There is no "voter intent" provision in the law if I understand the situation correctly.
Murkowski knew that - hence her insistence on having a list of write-in candidates printed (which is ridiculous at its face, but I'll leave that alone).
If Murky doesn't like it, she can go ask the AK legislature to change it.
Until then, counting those votes is against state law. All whining about 'disenfranchisement' notwithstanding.
Where do you draw the line? If 2 or 3 letters are misspelled and that is allowed, aren’t the people who “misspelled” 4 or more letters being disenfranchised? And why bend the rules in the middle of an election? If the state of Alaska wants to allow misspelling a write-in vote, then it should be put on the ballot and put to a vote. Don’t change midstream just because you want a specific candidate to win.
According to Alaskan law it IS unlawful to count mispellings.