Election-Campaign Law

Gronke on Hall on Alaska

By Paul Gronke

Thad Hall notes (below) the Alaksa statute (linked here) regarding Alaska law on rules for counting ballots, including write-ins.

I don’t agree with Thad, however, that the key question here is whether the oval is filled in properly.  The law specifies that nearly any mark (”making “X” marks, diagonal, horizontal, or vertical marks, solid marks, stars, circles, asterisks, checks, or plus signs that are clearly spaced in the oval opposite the name of the candidate”) in the oval will count.

I have two reactions to Thad’s post.  First, anyone taking the time to write in some variant of Lisa Murkowski would be likely to be able to make a mark in the oval (and one expects that the Murkowski campaign will go to great lengths to educate voters about the procedure).

Second, after Franken v. Coleman, can we actually be sure how a state or federal court will determine voter intent if there is a write in but no mark in the oval?  Maybe I can convince Ned Foley to weigh in.

Full post as published by Election Updates on September 29, 2010 (boomark / email).