Lisa Murcowskyie?

So if you haven't heard, Lisa Murkowski was complaining to the Alaska Elections Division Board during the post-election turmoil.  The senator, who was thrust into the Alaskan governorship by her father to finish out a term after Sarah Palin defeated Frank Murkowski (Lisa's father), tackled an open senate seat.  The Murkowski family has held power in Alaska for decades.  Alaskans have known that and attempted to end that through the Republican primary.  The voters did just that and elected Republican "fresh meat" in the form of Joe Miller.  Murkowski then launched a statewide write-in campaign that urged her supporters to do just that - write her into the senate.

As of now, the election is over.  Murkowski has won the first senate write-in seat in fifty years by a 5 percent margin over Miller.  Miller had planned on suing Murkowski over a handful of write-in votes, but the margin of victory made that a moot point.  However, Murkowski was ready, willing, and able to go after those write-in ballots that were not filled out correctly (similar to the one below).

So why was Murkowski complaining?  Because the Election Division was THINKING about following the Alaska state law that requires a write-in's name to be spelled correctly.  She felt that her name need not be spelled correctly on the write-in ballots that were completed at the beginning of the month in order to be counted.




Hanging-chad, anyone?

Of course our media was eating this up - it was politically intriguing.  However, there is one little problem.  As I said earlier, the state of Alaska has a specific law pertaining to write-in candidates that Murkowski was chomping at the bit to fight.  It goes as follows:

"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.

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.

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."

If Murkowski's margin of victory had been smaller, Miller would have disputed these incorrect write-ins according to AK law.  Can you imaging the scene?  It would be similar to the 2004 election in Florida (albeit not as important).

How has the mass media handled this story?  Could you see an outlet simply omitting this law from its news piece because they want M-u-r-c-o-w-s-q-u-i's republican principles in power?  Or could you see outlets that lean toward Miller's republican tendencies shouting this law at the top of their E-lungs?  How do you think a liberal blog would handle it?  Regardless, as a recent Gallop poll indicats - roughly 2 out of 3 of us think about voting this way in each election:



sources:

http://onemansalaska.com/blog/2010/11/09/alaska-write-in-law-statute-lisa-murkowski-campaign-senate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOO6FCTh8II

http://newsminer.com/view/full_story/10259857/article-Murkowski--Miller-camps-wrangle-over-write-in-ballot-challenges?instance=home_news_window_left_top_2

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-irwin-kula/gridlock-is-good_b_778489.html