Will RINOs Ignore The Law To Fix Alaska's Senate Election?

From Floyd Reports;

Will RINOs Ignore the Law to Fix Alaska’s Senate Election?




Posted on November 9, 2010 by Ben Johnson by Ben Johnson







Republican Joe Miller has seen the Alaskan state party Establishment pull out all the stops to keep its U.S. Senate seat in the hands of Lisa Murkowski. Although the media present her sore loser write-in candidacy as victorious and the upcoming vote count as a mere formality, it is still mathematically possible that Miller could come out on top. Now members of the state’s party appear set to ignore Alaskan law and hand the election to Murkowski to assure the continuation of big government Republicanism, minority racial preferences, and the flow of “our fair share of federal dollars” from the taxpayer spigot.



Joe Miller rode a wave of Tea Party discontent to the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. Rather than accept the voters’ decision, Murkowski tightened her well-manicured grasp around the reins of power. The scion of a nepotistic father, who appointed her to the Senate seat he vacated in 2002, Lisa knew she could count on the state’s industrial/political/contractor alliance to support (big) business as usual. After a well-financed campaign, the media proclaimed that Murkowski had emerged the winner. Election night results showed “write-in” with 41 percent of the vote, to Joe Miller’s 34 percent, a margin of 13,439 votes. Murkowski gave a victory speech, and the media began asking why Joe Miller had not bowed to Juneau’s little princess.



There were a host of problems with the victory lap. No one knew how many write-in votes were cast for Murkowski. Tens of thousands of absentee or questioned ballots had not even been received. And now, it appears state officials with deep ties to the Murkowski family are ready to ignore the law to assure the maximum number of possible Murkowski votes are counted, and the maximum number of Miller votes are discarded.



All Over but the…Countin’?



It is true more people cast write-in ballots than voted for either Miller or Democrat Scott McAdams, but that does not mean Murkowski has received the most votes. Beginning Wednesday, state officials will finally go through the mass of write-in ballots to see whose name they bear. The mainstream media present this process as a “recount,” but this is inaccurate: this “recount” will be the first time the votes are counted. Although the vast majority of them are probably for Murkowski, there is no way to know what percentage belongs to the 160 qualified write-in candidates who ran in protest, after talk show host Dan Fagan encouraged his listeners to flood the ballot.



And if a Murkowski-family appointee has his way, we will never know how many of those votes belong to Joe Miller.



In addition to the large number of Alaskan citizens who signed up as write-in candidates to mock Murkowski’s last ditch effort (after the Libertarian Party declined to kick out its own nominee and appoint the RINO), some Tea Party supporters decided to vote for Joe Miller by writing in his name. The state’s lieutenant governor, Craig Campbell, announced last week he would not count any write-in vote for Miller, since the Republican had not signed up as a write-in candidate.



Campbell’s unilateral decision to throw out part of Miller’s vote directly violated election law, specifically Alaskan statute 15.15.360. That law specifies, “Write-in votes are not invalidated by writing in the name of a candidate whose name is printed on the ballot.” The Division of Elections overturned him, but his decree stands out as an example of the disregard for law that is rampant in this count.



Coincidentally, Campbell, who became lieutenant governor after Sarah Palin resigned last summer, got his start in state government after being appointed by Frank Murkowski, Lisa’s father. In fact, Campbell thanked Papa Frank for his invaluable promotion when he was sworn in last July.



M-U-R-K-O-W-S-K-I



The greater issue is whether the statutory law will be applied to the write-in vote, or whether state bureaucrats will invent new standards aimed at elected Murkowski. Under state law, a write-in vote only counts if one fills in the oval next to the write-in blank and correctly spells the candidate’s last name. Randy DeSoto, a spokesman for the Miller campaign, has correctly noted, “Much of the Lisa Murkowski campaign – including ads, signs, and handout materials – was aimed making sure people fulfilled the legal requirement so their vote would count,” specifically learning how to spell her Polish last name. Evidence shows the Division of Elections is poised to ignore the law and crank up the election engineering.



Director Gail Fenumiai has told the media “in the event a voter misspells or abbreviates a candidate’s name, such as ‘Lisa M.’ instead of ‘Lisa Murkowski,’ the Division of Elections would determine the voter’s intent on a case-by-case basis.”



But the law could not be more clear. It states a vote “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.” (Emphasis added.) As if foreseeing just this kind of challenge, the statute concludes, “The rules set out in this section are mandatory and there are no exceptions to them. A ballot may not be counted unless marked in compliance with these rules.” http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/akstatutes/15/15.15./15.15.360.



Fenumiai appears to have bowed to pressure and backtracked from the “Lisa M.” standard – since the statute clearly demands “the last name of the candidate,” and there is another “Lisa M.” running as a write-in candidate, Lisa M. Lackey. (Given her last name, one could forgive voters for confusing her with Murkowski.) But it does not appear that she has abandoned her intention to count “Murkowski” votes that are plainly invalid.



Lisa Lawyers Up



To assure no statue bureaucrat goes off script, Murkowski has hired a team of lawyers, including Ben Ginsberg, the attorney who advised Republicans during the 2000 Bush v. Gore case. Ginsberg has claimed (falsely), that “Alaska has a [sic.] intent of the voter standard.”



The Fairbanks Daily News Miner reports, “To bolster their argument, Murkowski’s supporters will cite the section of state regulation that states not every voter has to fill in an oval for a vote to count.” But she cannot use the law to overturn the law. The Alaskan election statute states explicitly that a ballot will be counted if a voter’s mark touches “the oval so as to indicate clearly that the voter intended the particular oval to be designated.” The state law calls for election observers to apply voter intent – to the oval marking. There is no similar wiggle room in the section on writing the candidate’s last name, as noted above. By including a loophole on filling in the oval but not doing so for misspellings, the statute appears to forbid what Ginsberg claims it allows. This apples-and-oranges comparison proves nothing and seems to strengthen Miller’s contentions.



One may object that requiring the proper spelling of a candidate’s name unnecessarily disenfranchises voters, particularly the uneducated, but such are the perils of a write-in candidacy, supported and requested by no one but the candidate’s own vanity.



This leaves Lisa one final gambit.



“Winning” an Election by Judicial Fiat



Like Al Gore before her, the Murkowski campaign appears ready to appeal to the Alaskan state supreme court to undermine appropriate voting regulations. Her ever-growing legal counsel cite two Alaska Supreme Court cases: Edgmon v. State Office of Lt. Governor, Division of Elections (2007), which states, “we have consistently emphasized the importance of voter intent in ballot disputes”; and Carr v. Thomas (1978). However, neither ruling touches on misspelling the name of the candidate, which the law appears to close off.



More importantly, if the Alaskan Supreme Court allows “voter intent” to trump the clear statutory language of the legislature, it could provoke a constitutional crisis. Article I, section 4, of the U.S. Constitution requires, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” (Emphasis added.) This means the Founding Fathers intended the law – passed by representatives closer to the people – to trump both judicial activism and the decrees of executive agency officials like Campbell and Fenumiai.



This is good. It does not allow ex post facto engineering to bring vote-counting criteria into alignment with a predetermined outcome. And as Florida proved in 2000, allowing local officials to divine the “intent of the voter” invites abuse. Moreover, the ill-defined “voter intent” will almost certainly lead to votes being counted differently by different officials, eliminating the right to equal standing before the law.



If the state overrides the legislature’s will, Miller would rightly appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court , and the High Court could reasonably be expected to overturn the decision on the basis Article I, section 4. The Supreme Court has affirmed the preeminence of the legislature in its 1920 Hawke v. Smith decision and again 12 years later in Smiley v. Holm.



While the Murkowski dynasty is pursuing its protracted court battle, the people of Alaska could find themselves without representation.



How Joe Miller Can Win



Miller currently trails “write-in” by more than 13,000 ballots. Is it possible for his campaign to make up seven percent of the vote?



The answer seems to be yes.



Once the count begins, some of the write-in votes will go to Miller, Lackey, or the 159 other write-in candidates. Lt. Gov. Campbell has acknowledged, “I’m sure there’s probably going to be two or three dozen votes for Spiderman.”



Assuming the vast majority of remaining write-ins were intended for Murkowski, the state must by law exclude all ineligible votes, including misspellings.



Joe Miller told Fox and Friends that in the most recent case, 7.8 percent of write-in votes were disqualified for 1998 gubernatorial write-in candidate Robin Taylor. One should expect a higher percentage this year, as Murkowski is more difficult to spell than Taylor.



Once tabulated according to the law, this will determine the number of known ballots cast for each candidate.



Then officials will turn their attention to the 50-ton elephant in the GOP shootout.



The vote total will swell by tens of thousands of ballots no one has yet laid eyes on. Politco reports that “Fenumiai said that, as of Friday, the office had received 30,500 absentee ballots that will begin being counted Nov. 9. Fenumiai also said there are an additional 12,000 questioned ballots, which are scheduled to be opened and counted starting Nov. 12.”



Many of these will be ballots submitted by military voters. Miller, a decorated combat veteran, can expect to win a substantial percentage of those. A combination of a high percentage of Miller votes among absentee ballots and a large number of invalid Murkowski votes could make up the 13,439 vote gap and put Miller over the top.



Perhaps this is why the state has thrown another obstacle in front of Miller’s campaign.



Procedural Perfidy



Officials had originally scheduled the process of counting write-in votes for November 18, more than two weeks after the election. Shortly after the election, the state moved this up to November 10, eight days earlier. In a letter to Feumiai, Miller campaign attorney Thomas Van Flein wrote this “unusual departure from the typical protocol and rules” deprived the Miller campaign of the time it needed to assemble a ballot observer team of 40 to 60 people who will watch the watchers, to assure they agree the write-in ballots are counted – or not counted – in accordance with state law. Such an “arbitrary change,” he argued, “materially prejudices the Miller Campaign’s right to meaningfully observe the ballots.”



Miller campaign officials complain of other aspects of the decision. They allege state officials notified the Murkowski campaign of the change but not the Miller campaign. They also state the decision to hold the proceedings in the state capital of Juneau further burdens their team, since most Miller observers live closer to Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage. Some argue a state change in election procedures may be improper, or even require approval from the federal government pursuant to the Voting Rights Act.



What is certain is that these last minute changes benefit those with established teams – the Murkowski establishment and the Democratic Party – while squeezing the insurgent conservative movement to reclaim the state.



Why They Fight (Against Us)



The Republican, media, and bureaucratic Establishment have scorned the Tea Party movement everywhere, from sore loser candidacies such as Murkowski and Charlie Crist’s, to sniping at conservative Republican candidates by Karl Rove and Charles Krauthammer. Alaska’s political Establishment has a vested interest in fighting the movement; it sees this as Round Two of a prolonged war against Sarah Palin. State contractors want to continue their ride on the U.S. taxpayers. And the media are merely happy to pillory another conservative.



Alaskan media were found to be attempting to sabotage Miller’s campaign by tying it to pedophiles. Sarah Palin erupted at a familiar adversary, calling them “corrupt bastards.” However, Alaskans originally applied that phrase to another group of people altogether.



The Murkowski dynasty has ruled Alaska for 30 years. Frank Murkowski, Lisa’s father, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980 and served until 2002, when he ran for governor. After being sworn in, he appointed his daughter Lisa to his old seat. He proceeded to live the opulent life of pre-Tea Party Republicans, purchasing a Westwind II jet for more than $2 million. (Palin later sold it.) Some 11 Republican lawmakers became known as the “Corrupt Bastards Club” for allegedly accepting illegal campaign contributions from VECO Corporation. Several, including former Frank Murkowski aide Jim Clark, plead guilty. (A Supreme Court case later invalidated the law, but Clark admits he violated the law while it was on the books.)



Lisa Murkowski was no stranger to ethics complaints herself. She purchased a 1.25 acre lot on the Kenai River from Bob Penney, a “major contributor to Alaska political campaigns,” at well below market value. She then steered $6 million in earmarks toward building a road to the community, giving the appearance of impropriety. After the deal came to light, she sold the land back to Penney – making a pretty penny in the process.



Sarah Palin beat Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary in 2006, and went on to become governor. Cleaning up this Augean stables earned her the reputation as a maverick that cemented her place on the McCain ’08 ticket. Palin endorsed Joe Miller, and on election night, Lisa took a swipe at Palin and the Tea Party Express. For her, the fight is personal.



For others, it is just business. Video cameras recently caught a federal contractor encouraging his employees to vote for Lisa Murkowski, because she sits on the Appropriations Subcommittee, which “steers a lot of the funds to this state.”



(Story continues after video.)





For some, it is a mix of personal identity and economic parasitism. A group known as Alaskans Standing Together (AST) spent almost $600,000 on one over-the-top ad campaign alone. AST claimed Miller’s small government conservatism would cost the state “our fair share of federal dollars” and “destroy a third of Alaska’s economy.” They also hinted he would abolish Social Security and Medicare, and perhaps introduce a state income tax. The non-partisan FactCheck.org, run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, said the ad’s claims do not represent “a logical progression. It’s a scare tactic.”



AST is a combined effort of 11 native regional corporations, which benefit from a 1971 Affirmative Action-style law that benefits the state’s “Native American” population. The regional corporations, known as 8(a)s, are eligible for no-bid federal contracts, and have netted $29 billion since 2000. Miller supports a measure to cap payouts to and force 8(a)s to prove racial discrimination (the usual reason firms qualify for these contracts). Murkowski supports the federal gravy train for minority communities, saying, “I would oppose and fight any legislation that strips Alaska Native Corporations, Indian tribes, and native Hawaiians of the contracting preferences afforded to them.” (Emphasis added.) Ironically, the minorities themselves seem to benefit little from the program. Katrina Trinko wrote in National Review Online that “Out of the $23 billion received from federal contracts from 2000 to 2008, about $720 million (or $615 per person per year) went to native Alaskans, in the form of cash, scholarships, or other benefits.” But the AST’s members are benefiting, causing many to see these ads as a quid pro quo for Earmark Republicanism.



(Story continues after video.)





Murkowski hardly has the conservative reluctance to bilk the federal government Joe Miller has expressed. Her lifetime voting record from Citizens Against Government Waste is among the lowest of any Republican in the Senate, just a notch above confirmed RINOs Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Her lifetime ratings from National Right to Life Committee, American Family Association, Family Research Council, Eagle Forum, and other organizations are all tepid, hovering around 50 percent. Alaska’s Republicans agreed, that’s not good enough.



Soon, we will see if all the state’s voters agreed.



Far From Over



The process that begins tomorrow may drag on for nearly a month. Miller can request a recount until December 4, and the final tally must be filed with the state by December 9. If court cases continue after this point, they could easily last until after the new Congress is seated.



Big Government Republicans, Affirmative Action firms, federal contractors, and the state’s royal dynasty have all trained their guns on Joe Miller. But a wave of popular support – and a clear decision to follow the law – may yet put him in the Senate.