re: #298 lawhawk

Another way to parse it, and would be the method preferred by Murkowski would be to treat the statute as follows
A vote for a write-in candidate, other than a write-in vote for governor and lieutenant governor, shall be counted if the oval is filled in for that candidate and if the name, as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy, of the candidate or the last name of the candidate is written in the space provided.

Thus, they’d claim that the statute allows even Lisa M. to count as a vote for Murkowski. Under that interpretation, the clause “as it appears on the write-in declaration of the candidacy” would not limit the name of the candidate.

I think that’s a misreading of the statute because it goes against the legislative intent to include the clause.

re: #299 Obdicut
I happen to agree that it will come down to misspellings and Miller’s attempt to get as many of those thrown out as possible. They clearly aren’t votes for him, but Miller is going to attempt multiple legal arguments - including trying to throw out those that don’t follow the letter of the law. Then, he’ll go after the misspellings and incomplete names.