WRITE-IN CANDIDACY IS POSSIBLE, BUT CARRIES ‘SORE LOSER’ PENALTY
ate blank space on a ballot.
“If somebody was trying to write in Joe Brown and they wrote in Joe Brownlee, that’s not ‘Joe Brown,’” Merrill said. “If they wrote in ‘Joe Browne’ and it was ‘Joe brown,’ I don’t know how the law would be interpreted in that case.”
Poll workers at the local level, where votes are counted, would have to know ahead of time which potential spellings of a candidate’s name were permissible. A lack of clarity could invite problems, Merrill said, drawing a comparison to the disputed 2000 presidential election in Florida.
“As long as you can tell what they’re trying to spell, phonetically, it should be counted,” he said. “You’re almost on the edge of getting in a hanging-chad situation.”
The bylaws of the Alabama Republican Party do appear to be clear on one thing, though: If Strange were to run as a write-in candidate and lose, he would then be barred from seeking office as a Republican for six years. This “sore loser” rule was adopted by the party in 1994.
Could the date of the election be changed again?
Gov. Kay Ivey has the power to set and change special election dates, but it would be extraordinary for her to take such a step so close to the date, especially after absentee voting has begun.
“I’m not aware of any time in the history of the state when the governor changed the date of an election when the election was already in mid-stride,” Merrill said. “We had a primary and a runoff, and now we have a general election in (25) days.”
Ivey has already rescheduled the Senate election once after she became governor following the resignation of her predecessor, Robert Bentley, amid a sex and corruption scandal. Before she would do so again, she wants support from President Donald Trump, according to Republicans in touch with her camp.
If Moore is elected, is there anything Senate Republicans could do?
If Moore is elected, Senate Republicans could express their unhappiness by moving to expel him from the chamber. That process requires a twothirds majority vote, or 66 votes, said Josh Chafetz, a professor of law at Cornell Law School.
“The slight wrinkle with that is there is a long-standing norm with regards to conduct that was known to someone’s constituents prior to an election,” Chafetz said. “The idea is if your constituents knew about it and approved of it, then who is the chamber to expel you for it?”
The Constitution gives senators the power to refuse to seat someone only if they deem the election results invalid or the candidate to be unqualified under the terms of the Constitution, Chafetz said.
The last time a senator was expelled was in 1862 when several of them pledged allegiance to the Confederacy. The last time a member of the House was expelled was 2002, when James A. Traficant Jr., of Ohio, was convicted of bribery.
If Moore does win and the Senate expels him, Chafetz said, Ivey could then appoint a temporary replacement.
“In some ways it gives the Republicans a way to look pretty good,” he said. “They can get rid of someone they didn’t like anyway, they get to look like they’re doing nonpartisan ethics enforcement, and Ivey could replace him with an establishment Republican.”