The Alaska Lt. Governor has a job that is little more than warming a seat, just in case the governor croaks. One of the few actual responsibilities they have is overseeing electoral vote counts.
Alaska’s Lt. Governor was on with Mark Levin last night, and Mark took him to task for allowing those who are counting the Senate race votes to subjectively decide upon a write-in voter’s “intent”, instead of applying the letter of the Alaskan election statutes which clearly state that votes have to be tallied objectively by simply reading what’s on the ballot.
It appears to me that the Miller camp heard this conversation last night, and filed suit immediately to force the Lt. Governor to apply the law as written.
By the way, Mark had Joe Miller on a couple of nights back, and he told Joe in no uncertain terms that he’d better get his lawyers to the courthouse right away, if he intended to have the votes counted according to the law.
Looks like they listened to him. Good on them.
Looks like he had better sue to recount those “voter intent” ballots. It will no doubt remove several thousand votes from the Kow.
Here’s the relevant statutory language for counting write-ins in Alaska (AK 15.15.360):
(10) In order to vote for a write-in candidate, the voter must write in the candidate’s name in the space provided and fill in the oval opposite the candidate’s name in accordance with (1) of this subsection.
(11) A vote for a write-in candidate, other than a write-in vote for governor and lieutenant governor, shall be counted if the oval is filled in for that candidate and if the name, as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy, of the candidate or the last name of the candidate is written in the space provided....
(b) The rules set out in this section are mandatory and there are no exceptions to them. A ballot may not be counted unless marked in compliance with these rules.