Slate has this essay on how election officials handle write-in votes, when the voter spells the candidate’s name incorrectly. The article was prompted by the interest in write-in votes caused when U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski declared she will be a write-in candidate for re-election. Thanks to Henry Hirose for the link.
The principle that the voter’s intent should control is an old one, that has been promulgated by courts in the United States for over a century.
Any declared write-in stuff in frozen AK ?
OK just to write in *L* and/or *M* ?
Yes, write-in candidates file a declaration of write-in candidacy in Alaska, due 5 days before the election.
Richard, didn’t when the late Senator Strom Thurmond first ran as a “write-in” for the U.S.Senate in 1950, the courts or election officials ruled as long as the intent of the voter was clear, the vote had to be counted.
I’ve read where people wrote-in names like “Stom Turmond,” “Tom Thromand” and a half-dozen different mis-spellings, but all votes were counted and he won overwhelmingly.
Here in New York, I lost an election (by one vote) after the Election Commissioners agreed to change the decision of a local election inspector about whether a write-in that spelled the last name horribly wrong was to be counted. The Election Commissioners however didn’t comply with any of the existing rules in doing so, and they contradicted a New York State court ruling that at least the last name has to be correct for a write-in vote to count. When questioned, the Commissioners simply said, “That’s the way we’ve always done it”. When questioned about not following the law they said, “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”
In Alaska it will be complicated by the fact that Murkowski sounds a bit like McAdams, so election officials will definitely have their work cut out for them!
Karl Rove said today that Alaska requires write-in names to be spelled correctly. He was obviously mistaken.
South Carolina, of course, was still a one-party state when Strom Thurmond was elected as a write-in in 1954.
Richard: Were there any (active) candidates in that race besides Thurmond and the Democratic nominee?
Thurmond had good name ID, since he had served as governor (1947-1951) and had run for president in ’48.
I remember when Thurmond broke John Stennis’s record for Senate longevity– later broken by Robert Byrd. One of the young reporters asked Thurmond why he never ran for president!
Considering that Lisa’s father, Frank Murkowski, held the same U.S. Senate seat before Lisa for 21 years (he originally appointed her to fill the vacancy when he became governor in 2002), I’m pretty sure that we’re very familiar up here with the name Murkowski.
Whether or not people will remember to mark the bubble next to the blank for the write-in name is another question. It’s one reason that I think the ideal voter machine includes a touch-screen that prints a paper ballot (not a receipt).
Pete … that’s @#$%ed up. But I can’t say I’m surprised.
As for “frozen Alaska” it was 60 degrees and very sunny today. 🙂