Miller Campaign Argues That Misspelled Murkowski Votes Are 'Protest' Votes For Miller

Way back when Lisa Murkowski decided to embark on her write-in bid for the Senate, she won a key ruling from Alaska's election director Gail Fenumiai: voters would not have to spell her name precisely in order for their vote to count, they merely had to get it close enough so that election officials could correctly surmise voter intent. How close? Per the Anchorage Daily News, "Just 'Lisa' might be a problem but 'Lisa M' would be acceptable, Fenumiai told the adn.com politics blog."

Naturally, finding himself behind in the raw vote to "Write-In Candidate," Joe Miller's campaign is working its legal mojo in an effort to get past this ruling, which they now see as the main obstacle to Miller taking the seat. Yesterday, Miller filed suit to "prevent the state from using discretion in determining voter intent on write-in ballots." This isn't especially surprising. But over at TPM, Josh Marshall flags part of Miller lawyer Thomas Van Flien's suit as being particularly "novel" and/or "preposterous."

...the new policy makes no provision for the many voters who cast protest votes. Prior to the election, people commented on radio stations and in the comment sections in blogs and newspaper stories that they would deliberately incorrectly write-in a variation of "Murkowski" as a protest. They did so knowing that Murkowski was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a "spelling bee" campaign, replete with wrist bands, pencils and tattoos, all to educate the voters on proper spelling. Why was this done? Because even Murkowski had read the law and knew that it required proper spelling -- "No exceptions." So protest voters were trying to send a message to the candidate. The state has failed to create any guideline or standard that would account for the intent of the voter who intentionally cast a protest vote. To the contrary, the state is indicating that it will now count a protest vote, deliberately cast with a misspelling as a vote for Murkowski. This effectively nullifies the protest and falsely inflates the vote for the write-in candidate.

In other words, per Van Flien, the correct way of interpreting a misspelled Murkowski vote is that it's actually a protest vote for Joe Miller. Which is, you know, a pretty long and complicated walk in the park as far as voter intent goes, considering that the best way to cast a protest vote for Joe Miller would be to just vote for Joe Miller.

Of course, the Murkowski campaign famously misspelled "Murkowski" on its own advertising, so maybe that advertisement was actually a protest advertisement for the Joe Miller campaign. Heck, maybe the entire write-in effort itself is actually a protest campaign for Joe Miller. Wheels within wheels, people.

I think that what this teaches us is that it must be really fun to craft utterly bogus legal arguments for a living.

RELATED:
Miller: We Can Assume All Poor Spellers Support Me [TPM]

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Comments

[eemjaygee]

03:52 PM on 11/12/2010

Joe is determined to protect the freedom of all Alaskans from the Socialists, and he isn't going to let some election get in the way.

[marlaannchristenson]

08:56 PM on 11/11/2010

I have said from the beginning of his campaign, he is a malignant narcissist. The malignant narcissist gets higher levels of psychological gratification from accomplishments over time (thus worsening the disorder). Because the malignant narcissist becomes more involved in this psychological gratification, they are likely develop the antisocial, the paranoid, and the schizoid personality disorders. The term malignant is added to the term narcissist to indicate that individuals with this disorder tend to worsen in their impulse controls and desires over time. (thanks Wikipedia!) - the most simple definition I could find. Seriously, this guys is damaged, and he will damage the state if he gets his hands on it. His world view is not normal, buy any means.

[reasonshouldrule]

08:43 PM on 11/11/2010

So Miller wants to argue that a person misspelling Murkowski is actually voting for him? Is he lacking a few brain cells here--or does he think the rest of us are?

[JakeD3]

06:54 PM on 11/12/2010

Actually, Miller is not arguing that the misspellings should be counted as votes for him. He's arguing that the misspellings should NOT be counted as votes for her.

"No comment" on the amount of brain cells you have.

[reasonshouldrule]

09:59 PM on 11/12/2010

What you have said makes sense, but the article itself stated that Miller claimed misspelled Murkowski votes were protest votes for him. Clearly, he wants as many write-in votes for Murkowski as possible disallowed.

Regarding the number (not amount) of brain cells I have, they are perfectly adequate, thank you.

[1pioneer1]

07:42 PM on 11/11/2010

Whether they misspelled Lisa's last name, or not, those voters did not vote for Miller. Period.

[ronkw]

07:50 PM on 11/11/2010

No one is claiming a "protest" vote is/was an actual vote FOR Miller.

[FinalRetribution]

07:29 PM on 11/11/2010

What if voter intent clash’s with law?

Alaska law says the name of a write in candidate must be spelled correctly AND, "AND," the bubble must be filled in. If either one of those isn’t done, then the voter screwed themselves by not following instructions.

Are we a nation of laws or not? This is why the Supreme Court ultimately stepped in in Florida 2000. People were so worried about ‘intent’ (and creating various and sundry ways of interpreting said intent) – that the law was being ignored.

[JasonWS]

07:31 AM on 11/12/2010

A court ruling on the law was made before election day that made a special dispensation for the complexities of the spelling of Murkowski's last name.

Reading tests and even literacy itself are not required components for voting. There's a reasonable argument for it that is trumped by the Constitution and even the Americans with Disabilities act (some people who have a stroke or head injury(like say a distant cousin of mine who was struck by a roadside bomb in Iraq) are fully cognizant and still productive, but cannot write in the English language anymore. Some of these people can type or even indicate a specific box, but they might painstakingly copy the symbols to correctly vote.

Is this the majority of the folks in Alaska? No, many of them may have simply misspelled Murkowski's last name because their native(and still American) language is a tribal dialect, their education may be lacking, or they may have accidentally read and remembered some of the misspellings either sent by her opponent Joe Miller or by her own campaign.

It doesn't matter. A judge, who is the arbiter of our laws under both Alaskan and US constitutional matters stated "Lisa M." was enough and anything better than that is fine.
A similar matter resulted in the election of a President. A Supreme Court majority ruled that because there wasn't enough time to finish a recount, the originally certified count would be the one valid to meet Florida's Constitutional mandate.

[bintalshamsa]

11:47 PM on 11/18/2010

JasonWS, thank you so much for understanding how disability rights plays a role in this. I am a person with disabilities and so is my partner. I have rheumatoid arthritis and my partner had a traumatic brain injury that has left him permanently damaged. My handwriting is absolutely atrocious, even when I don't write in cursive lettering. Should someone like me have their vote disqualified if my "u" looked like an "a" or my "k" looks like an "h"? If my partner is dealing with a bit of fogginess or his vision isn't too great on a given day and he happens to misspell a name by a single letter, should his vote be thrown out? Most reasonable people can understand how that would be discrimination that our founding documents prohibit. If all men are created equal, then those who have poor handwriting or poor spelling skills have just as much of a right to be able to choose their representatives as everyone else.

[ronkw]

07:27 PM on 11/11/2010

The Alaska statute states clearly that write in names must be spelled correctly if they are to count.

So Fenumiai doesn't really have the authority to this. They are violating State Statute.

And that will be a seperate law suit.

[JasonWS]

07:32 AM on 11/12/2010

A judge certainly does have the right to set aside a statute in extenuating circumstances. Judges are not activist when they exercise their constitutional powers. It's actually called doing their job. Miller may sue, but the ruling's validity or even the judge's actions are unimpeachable.

[joedaplumper]

07:05 PM on 11/11/2010

Wow! With that kind of twisted logic, Miller's brain will need to be in a splint for months.

[Lady Doodlebug]

06:54 PM on 11/11/2010

Desperate much, Mr. Miller?

[Whohoo]

05:42 PM on 11/11/2010

HuffPo, please use this photo when needing a photo of Murkowski (the reference is to Joe Miller's security detail, which handcuffed a journalist who tried to ask a question at an advertised public event in a public school, who were unlicensed, who were in part active duty military working w/o permission from superiors, & who have ties to white illicit militias - all this is documented just in plain old real life, not just on Halloween). The photo w/o the article was available on Murkowski's facebook page, in her photos, but here it is in a news article:

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/blogs/political-animal/7355-murkowski-spoofs-miller

[shivabeach]

05:31 PM on 11/11/2010

I find that Joe "Al Franken" Miller's claim that these fools our protest. It is utterly hilarious. If they were protest votes for Miller then why did they just not vote for Miller?

And this guy wants to be a United States Congressman. We might as well have had Sharron Angle

[thegreatdaveo]

05:29 PM on 11/11/2010

It will really be a bad day if the will of the people is subverted by a technicality. Every state should have some kind of common sense clause written into every law to prevent people from exploiting loopholes for nefarious reasons.

[jclaireburke]

05:21 PM on 11/11/2010

Wow it's obvious Miller has real contempt for the voters and for the democratic system.

[keemia]

05:03 PM on 11/11/2010

I voted for Kerry as a protest against W, so what? Half the votes people cast are against the opponent. Has he ever voted??

[James Overlie]

04:56 PM on 11/11/2010

The law should be changed AFTER this election!

[Mark Morrow]

04:38 PM on 11/11/2010

Aparently, Joe Miller voters would rather mis-spell Murkowski's name as a protest than to actually vote for Miller. Since such a vote can't be counted for Miller since it would be an incorrect spelling of "Miller" the protest would be to waste the vote entirely. Mr. Van Flien's logic is rather hard to understand.

[Whohoo]

05:17 PM on 11/11/2010

They probably weren't a lot of fun on the playground, either.

[thegreatdaveo]

05:23 PM on 11/11/2010

It's very similar to the guy from the conservative group Latinos for Reform telling Hispanics in Nevada not to vote at all as a form of protest. If anyone believed this "logic," he needs to have his head examined.