The Alaska Supreme Court just ruled that the elections division can provide assistance with the names of write-in candidates if voters ask for it.
Voters who need help spelling the name of a write-in candidate and who want to see a list of those certified candidates can look at the list under limited circumstances, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled Friday afternoon.
The list, though, won't include the party affiliation of the candidates on it, and it can only be handed out to those voters who specifically ask for help in spelling a write-in candidate's name, the Supreme Court ruled in a decision issued late Friday afternoon.
"There will be some circumstances where providing the list will not be necessary to address a voter's request for assistance and other circumstances where providing the list will be necessary to address a voter's request for assistance," the court said in its ruling.
"For example, if a voter requested the correct spelling of a specified registered write-in candidate's name, it would be unnecessary to provide the entire list to that voter in order to provide the requested spelling assistance."The court also said the Division of Election won't have to segregate the ballots of those voters who reference the list, a change from its previous order.
It's unclear as of yet what might constitute those "limited circumstances" under which the list would be provided, since it seems that it would be given to anyone who asked. It further appears that, in order to get around the issue that Operation Alaska Chaos has created, pollworkers can just circumvent the list and provide individual candidates' names. In response to court's decision overturning a lower court's restraining order on the division, a flood of something like 150 Alaskas have registered as write-in candidates. Now voters won't have to try to find Murkowski's name on the long list to figure out how to spell it, they can just ask a helpful poll worker.
Additionally, the court ruled that pollworkers won't have to separate the ballots of voters who received this assistance, meaning that if this is at all close, we can expect months of litigation and intense scrutiny of every write-in vote cast.
The Democratic party responded to the ruling with this statement, via e-mail:
(Anchorage, Alaska) – Since early voting began, the Alaska Democratic Party (ADP) has sought to have the Division of Elections (DOE) implement a straightforward, fair, and legal election for all Alaska voters.
The DOE create a legally flawed write-in list for the first-time in Alaska history – a mere 2 days after a certain person filed to be a write-in candidate. The DOE then distributed the legally flawed list without instructions. Abuses occurred, such as posting the list inside polling booths and using it to encourage people to vote for a certain candidate. Through the actions of the ADP, these abuses have been made public.
“We are very disappointed with this decision. We continue to believe that election rules must be followed in order for the public to have
confidence in the impartiality of the election process,” said Patti Higgins, Chair of the Alaska Democratic Party.
“Our lawsuit was in response to the DOE’s hasty and unprecedented actions in creating a write-in list for the first time in Alaska’s history.” stated Higgins. “We are very concerned about continued election abuses, given this court order.”
This could potentially create some backlash against Murkowski, with the perception that she's throwing her weight and political clout around to gain every possible, unprecedented advantage. That perception will likely be reinforced because of the suspension of KFQD 750 AM host Dan Fagan, the guy who came up with Operation Alaska Chaos, "after a representative of Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s campaign called to complain. Fagan said he's not fired and that the status of the show will be 're-evaluated' on Monday." For a lot of Alaska voters, that's just going to stink, even if Fagan is a right-wing blowhard.