Posted on 11/11/2010 8:32:15 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
ABC News' Huma Khan reports: A federal court judge denied late Wednesday Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller's appeal to stop the counting of write-in ballots that were misspelled or incorrectly written.
Instead, the judge asked both the elections division and Miller’s campaign to file a response by next week.
Miller had filed a lawsuit Tuesday to keep the Alaska Elections Division from counting ballots that may be misspelled but that the division said it would accept if it clearly represented voter intent.
Election officials say that Miller’s campaign observers have been questioning many legitimate ballots, a charge his aides deny, according to local reports.
"Watching the application of the newly invented ‘voter intent’ standard has been troubling,” said Miller’s attorney John Tiemessen, who has been monitoring the ballot count in Juneau. “We have seen first hand ballots 'put on hold' because the state employee could not figure out voter intent, but thought if they looked at the same ballot tomorrow or the next day, the ballot might be easier to understand. This is precisely the problem with having a state bureaucrat guess what a voter supposedly meant.”
Incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski has garnered about 98 percent of the write-in votes that have been counted thus far, but the elections division has a long ways to go.
Watch Joe Miller today on Top Line at noon EST.
Alaska law saw the write-ins have to have the write-in oval filled in and the name correctly spelled, but that has been ignored as well.
I see the rule of law regarding elections is as dead in Alaska as it has been in Florida and New Jersey.
Judge nominated by Lisa’s father, as I recall. So the letter of the law doesn’t apply in her case.
Fight this thing all the way to the US Supreme Court, Joe.
No more Mr. Nice Guy.
Alaska... the new california.
LLS
it’s pretty inevitable that he’s going to lose this election, don’t you think? Wish it were otherwise but she’s got the clout, they’ll find a way.
IS the Alaskian SOS a Soros SOS?
Well, we KNEW this one was coming.
Not if they're counting votes explicitly excluded by law.
Plus, they illegally placed spelling guides in the ballot boxes.
If nothing else, Joe can keep Lisa from being seated for a couple of years until it's all sorted out in the courts.
Way to go, RNC! You folks ALL need to be put out to pasture...
Alaska is getting ready for when certain ethnic candidates run since it is hard to translate names to English. Muslim, Moslem, Mooslim...
This "standard" is very troubling because it gives rise to subjective judgment. It also apparently is outside of the rules and regulations for write-in candidates. First we have "responsible" decision makers fail to honor the results of the primary elections; now we have loose interpretation of write in procedures. ...not a good thing.
"Alaskan statute 15.15.360. states a vote '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.'
The statute continues with “there are no exceptions” to this statute; 'A ballot may not be counted unless marked in compliance with these rules.' "
As I understand the numbers and the trends, this is moot. She wins by a larger margin without even considering the questionable ballots. I will ignorantly/naively hope that she may move a bit right as a result of this wake up call. It can happen.
Will depend on Military absentee ballots.
What can you do I guess? I got a few Indians in my village to vote for Miller (I witnessed their absentee ballots), but across Alaska, many villages voted entirely for Lisa.
The Indians have become dependent on the fed spending started in the 60's. Upriver in Canada, the govt gives the Villages BLM, fed park lands for economic development. The Indians in our village have cousins in Canada who are doing so much better than in the villages here along the Yukon in Ak. It's sad because our Indians here are dying out as a people from the social condition our govt has supported; same as genocide actually.
I keep telling them how can they believe anything any White political promises them; they have 100 years of promises and it's not getting any better when they keep burying way more than being born.
Who would you rather have, DNC?
If so you need to be put out to MoveOn.org.
Like Alcee Hastings said they make the rules up as they go along.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.