• Posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2010
  • Bookmark and Share
  • email
  • |
  • print
  • |
  • rss

tool name

close
tool goes here

Joe Miller files lawsuit over write-in handwriting, voter ID

email this story print this story jump to comments

More on this Story

Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller followed through on a court order Monday and moved his lawsuit challenging the general election results to state court in Fairbanks from federal court in Anchorage.

Miller's 21-page lawsuit in Fairbanks Superior Court mostly mimics his earlier claims in federal court: that election officials improperly counted too many write-in votes for the apparent winner, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and failed to count legitimate votes for him.

But he added two new allegations. He said that in unnamed precincts, voters may have been allowed to take ballots even if they didn't have identification or weren't personally known to election officials. As evidence, he said, ballot rolls in some precincts failed to indicate whether the election official had asked for identification.

And he said that "in several precincts," handwriting samples indicate that the same person or a small group of people wrote in names on multiple ballots. He said that would be a violation of a requirement that a voter personally pen the name of a write-in candidate.

Murkowski claimed victory last week when a hand count of write-in ballots by the state Division of Elections showed she led Miller by more than 10,000 votes. Even subtracting the ballots challenged by Miller's representatives, Murkowski still led by more than 2,100 votes.

But Miller is saying the balloting was unfair from the precincts in unnamed parts of the state to the counting room in Juneau.

To read the complete article, visit www.adn.com.

  • Bookmark and Share
  • email
  • |
  • print
  • |
  • rss

tool name

close
tool goes here
JOIN THE DISCUSSION

We welcome comments. To post one, you must sign in using either your McClatchyDC login or your login for Facebook, Twitter or Disqus. Just click the appropriate box below.

Please keep your comment civil, short and to the point. Obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. If you find a comment abusive or inappropriate, please flag it for the moderator by placing your cursor on the comment, then clicking the "flag" link that appears. Thanks for your participation.

Stay Connected

Sign up for email newsletters RSS
Follow us on your iPhone Follow us on your Android device
Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us using Google Currents

POLITICS & GOVERNMENT BLOG

Planet Washington

"Planet Washington" is a group blog by journalists in McClatchy's Washington Bureau. Send a story suggestion.