On December 22, the Alaska Supreme Court issued a unanimous 24-page opinion, agreeing with the lower court, in Miller v Treadwell, S-14112. This is the case in which Joe Miller, Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Alaska, had argued that many write-in votes for Lisa Murkowski should not be counted. The lower court had interpreted the law not to require perfect spelling. But the lower court had also ruled that write-in votes are invalid when the voter forgets, or doesn’t know, to fill in the oval next to the name written in. The Alaska Supreme Court agreed with the lower court on both those points, and on all the other points. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
The decision is heavy on good rhetoric about respecting the intent of each voter. The part of the decision that disallows write-ins when the voter didn’t fill in the oval is inconsistent with that rhetoric, but the Court didn’t seem to recognize the contradiction.