Just checked the Anchorage Alaska phone directory:
3 Murkowsky’s (including Lisa A.)
3 Murkowski’s (including Lisa A., same addy as above))
intersting..............
That is the real problem with “intent”. We know that people write-in all sorts of people. And in Alaska, those write-ins aren’t counted unless the name they write in happens to be a registered name.
But you have to assume a lot to assume that a person writing a legal name that didn’t happen to register must have REALLY meant to write a different name that DID happen to register.
At which point you have to ask, which name on the official list did they really mean to write? Do we assume they only slightly misspelled the name, or maybe they completely misspelled the name and they meant a different candidate altogether...
Or maybe they were voting for their friend down the street, Lisa A Murkowsky.