Assembly amends write-in ballot acceptability

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough Assembly unanimously approved a change to Borough code, allowing candidates listed on the ballot to have write-in votes to count as well. Borough Clerk Lonnie McKechnie presented the ordinance.

“A number of voters do this, they will write in the candidate and have the exact same name so you have John Doe listed on the ballot, they’ll put it in the write in as John Doe and right now borough code does not allow us to count those. However since the canvass board is having to review each ballot during the recount process anyways, it would be an easy process for us to start counting those write-in votes when that person’s name is on the ballot,” said McKechnie.

Ordinance 21-066 came as a shock to numerous members on the Assembly. Assemblyman Jesse Sumner asked about how many ballots this ordinance would concern.

“I’m not tallying those so I can’t give you a number and I shouldn’t be tallying those, but there are a number of them and when elections are close you could have two people that have done it and it could actually affect an election,” said McKecnie.

The Assembly then began to question what other acceptable forms of names would count for votes, including District 5 Assemblyman Clayton Tew, who goes by his nickname Mokie.

“My legal name is Clayton Tew and I’ve been doing business in the state of Alaska for 30 some years and probably only a handful of people know that my name is Clayton Tew.So when I went out and I campaigned, I believe there was quite a few write-in’s that they wrote Mokie on there because they didn’t see my name. So I believe that if this ordinance changes it so my name written in would’ve counted for a vote, which was the voter intention, then I think we should pass it,” said Tew.

McKechnie said that legal questions about the acceptable standard for write-in votes would likely fall under the Lisa Murkowski case, and deferred to Borough Attorney Nick Spiropolous.

“When these issues come up during the middle of an election at election time, the canvass board will come and ask for legal opinions from the attorney’s office and we’ll give them and then what happens is we talk about some time in the future, we need to amend the code before the next election comes up. This is one of those cleanups that you’re recounting all the ballots anyway, you should be able to just count those names because right now it’s pretty unclear in the code whether they would count,” said Spiropolous.

Assemblyman Rob Yundt asked Spiropolous to report back at a later date with a legal opinion on nicknames used on ballots. Ordinance 21-066 passed without opposition.