Miller Campaign Complies with Federal Court Order and Files Suit in State Court
Anchorage, Alaska. November 22, 2010 — Today, the Joe Miller campaign filed suit in state court as directed by federal U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline. Judge Beistline ruled on Friday that the Miller campaign had raised “serious constitutional questions” regarding the manner in which the state handled the ballot counting, and ordered a stay of certification of the election because those questions implicated “serious state law issues.”
The lawsuit presents most of the same issues that were before Judge Beistline. Specifically, because state law forbids the counting of write-in votes that do not match the name of the candidate as set forth in the candidate’s declaration form, and because the state legislature declared that there will be “no exceptions” to this law, the Miller Campaign is challenging the Division of Elections arbitrary decision to ignore this statute. Under the federal Constitution, only the state legislature can establish the voting standards for a senatorial election, and the state judiciary and state executive branch are prohibited, under the Elections Clause, from tampering with the legislative mandates. Nevertheless, the state ignored the legislative statute and instead came up with its own regulations, regulations that have never been applied in 50 years of statewide elections.
Campaign spokesperson, Randy DeSoto said that, “The state of Alaska successfully argued to the Alaska Supreme Court that a voter list had to be provided at each precinct because if the write-in votes were not spelled correctly, the ballot would not be counted. Now, after the election, the state is taking a different position, claiming the law does not really say what the state told the Alaska Supreme Court it did. This duplicity does not speak well for the Division of Elections.”
Joe Miller said, “We have consistently stated that the rule of law has to be followed. The state of Alaska, through its elections division, must respect the law enacted by the legislature. It is not enough that the Lt. Governor personally does not like the law. It is the law until it is amended or repealed by the legislature, and the failure to follow state law shocks the conscience of every voter who thought their vote would be counted in accord with law.” Miller added, “State law is not a lunch menu where the Lt. Governor can pick and choose which laws he likes and will follow and which ones he doesn’t like. Deliberate indifference to the law cannot be condoned.”
Campaign Chief Counsel, Thomas Van Flein, further noted that “we have also raised substantive and procedural concerns arising out of the state’s creation of a new voting regulation that was never publicized, never vetted for public input, and completely lacked an enabling statute. Under the state Administrative Procedure Act, the regulation should be declared invalid, and that is what the Complaint is seeking.”
Good. As expected. Let’s hope he has found a judge who will respect the law, as clearly written.
ping
Even if Joe doesn’t prevail, I hope he ties up Lisa as long as possible. A barrage of ethics lawsuits is what she deserves as well.
“Miller has contested 8,159 of those votes and claims that even some of the votes that were written in correctly for Murkowski may be fraudulent.”
Here is the implications of this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2630235/posts?page=190#190
**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.”
**Voter intent not being applied to Miller votes, but only to murky write-in votes.
**complaints of voters that stacks of votes were already in the ballot boxes/containers only 10 minutes into the voting day, and with only a few voters having voted.
If counting “every last vote” was good enough for Stuart Smalley in Minnesota, it’s darn sure good enough for a legitimate candidate like Joe! I’m glad he’s not rolling over.
Makes me like him even better!!
“Miller is trying to raise money to continue his court battle to overturn the election results.
Senator Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican and Tea Party leader, is seeking donations through his Senate Conservatives Fund. DeMint’s website reported it has raised $152,200 to date for the “Joe Miller Recount Fund.”
http://joemiller.us/
http://senateconservatives.com/
Eh. Time to call in the dogs and p!$$ on the fire. Love his politics and gave him a little money, but he turned out to be a rather weak candidate. Princess Lisa won fair and square. Let’s get her next go-round.
Miller should challenge not just the 8,159 he already has for spelling and handwriting mistakes, but the entire write-in vote procedure.
At the very least, he should also challenge the votes where the Oval was not filled in completely.
No election victory UNTIL certification roto reuters.
That’s what I say. Don’t let these loud mouth bullies fraudulently take the election.
“Hey Dems, you’re next, no more walks in the park”
Keep at it!
Thing is, if thats how the law is written, why bother having it, if they wont follow it to the letter, do they just do what the hell they like with other laws too, its lax stuff like this that creates confusion and sets bad precedent, either you follow the law or just dont bother having them and i hope Joe argues that.
Expose the liars for what they are, he needs to argue, if that is the case that they accept any spelling then why did murkowski spend a fortune teaching people to spell her name corretly and in ads saying fill in the oval and spell the name correctly, she set the precedent that this must happen in her literature and ads, so she expected that would happen also. Fire it back at her.
Joe lost, time to give up!
The democrats are very good at fixing close elections and have taken over many of the blue states elections where only idiots and communists are elected. And the DC pols always fail to fix the corrupt election system.