Joe Miller: Misspelling "MURKOWSKI" is a Protest Vote

Well, this is a new one.

Joe Miller and/or his lawyers, contesting the vote count in Alaska, filed a federal lawsuit and are trying to create a fantasy world in which a write-in vote for Lisa Murkowski that happens to be misspelled is a sign that the voter intended it as a protest vote and thus should not be counted.

The lawsuit argues that many people who cast misspelled write-in ballots might have done so deliberately, as a protest against Sen. Lisa Murkowski's campaign. If elections officials deem these misspelled ballots as votes for Murkowski, it "overrides voter intent" and "nullifies the protest and falsely inflates the vote for the write-in candidate," the suit argues.

Miller's lawsuit asks for an injunction and for a hearing to be held today, in an attempt to stop the state from "counting or otherwise accepting as valid any write-in ballots in which the name of the candidate is spelt [sic] incorrectly, or on which the name of the candidate is not written as it appears on a write-in declaration of candidacy."

This should be thrown out on the grounds that a lawsuit attempting to define voter intent on the basis of misspellings should not have any misspellings in said lawsuit. "Spelt"? C'mon, people. Anyone in Alaska ever hear of SPELLCHECK?!

Now, I will say that a protest vote deliberately misspelled should not be counted, such as "Lease-a Mur-COW-ski" or "Lisa Murfucksme," but "Lisa Murkowsky" or "Lisa Merkowski"? How can that be anything other than an intended vote for said candidate?

Besides not spelling properly, Miller's lawyers are also citing Bush v. Gore as it pertains to ballot counting and voter intent. I guess they don't realize that the Supreme Court's decision in that case only pertains to that case. There is purposely no precedent set by Bush v. Gore. There's some fine lawyerin' going on up in Sarah Palin's Alaska, huh?  Desperate times...