Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2011
Keywords
Election Law, Alaska
Abstract
The 2010 race for the Alaska Senate now seems to be over. After losing in the Republican Party Primary to Tea Party-backed candidate Joe Miller, Senator Lisa Murkowski staged a write-in candidacy and, bucking both U.S. and Alaska history, won the general election. Although much attention has been paid to Miller’s post-election challenges to Murkowski write-in ballots, a major election law question was at issue prior to the election: to what extent can poll workers assist voters who need help in voting for a write-in candidate?
After Murkowski declared her write-in candidacy, the Alaska Division of Elections distributed a list of eligible write-in candidates to polling places, in case voters had questions about how to properly spell the name of a write-in candidate. Both parties, sensing this would benefit Murkowski, cried foul, and challenged the new policy in Alaska state court as a violation of the Division’s own regulations prohibiting the distribution of “information” about write-in candidates at polling places.
This essay examines four issues regarding voter assistance in the Murkowski litigation: (1) how to interpret statutes and regulations regarding voter assistance; (2) what kind of assistance is permissible and what kind is not; (3) whether the state can legitimately handicap the ability of voters to write-in the name of a candidate; and (4) how decisions on assistance to voters before the election might affect a court’s disposition on cases that arise after the election.
Recommended Citation
Flanders, Chad, How Do You Spell M-U-R-K-O-W-S-K-I? Part I: The Question of Assistance to the Voter (December 1, 2010). Alaska Law Review, Vol 28, p. 1, 2011; Saint Louis U. Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2011-18.