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Archive 1

Lack of balance

This article relies on a primary source (the plaintiff, Miller's complaint), and does not present the other side. There is case law to the contrary, and it is not described here. KeptSouth (talk) 17:48, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

  • The other side isn't presented yet because the other side hasn't said anything yet. The only papers filed with the court are Miller's, and the only analyses available in secondary sources are one-sided for the same reason; unless we make up the other side's argument for them (which we can't do) the article will inevitably feel one-sided until the other side responds. They will, of course, and the article will be amended in due course. Feel free to add the defendant's side when they come up with one. Patience, young Jedi. :p - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 18:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
  • For example, compare if you will the Washington Post's treatment of the case. They state the background, recite the claims of Miller's complaint, and note that all sides are lawyering up. That's about all they can say, because neither Murkowski nor the state have yet responded in the media or in court. Is the WaPo's coverage lacking in balance? No. Neither is this article. It's just in the inevitable early stage of gestation that all articles about breaking news events must go through. That said, I'm happy to leave the banner you added in place in order to encourage people to contribute.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 18:10, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Regardless of the lack of filings by the State, some of the State's positions are articulated in newspaper articles, and these are not discussed in a balanced way in this article. Thus, my tag is correctly placed until this balance is added.
In addition, the fact that the State has not responded to the allegations makes this topic premature as well as unbalanced. Depth of coverage is required for a stand alone article, WP:Notability (events). You are saying this depth - the legal response by the State - has not obtained, and I completely agree. Event notability also requires lasting significance; there is no indication this case is anything other than a flash in the pan. One or two more days of recounting, and Miller may have to give up the suit if the number of the "segregated" ballots cannot result in him overturning the obvious result. The Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not news. WP:Not#News. Stand-alone article criteria are not met, imo. I am going to propose an AfD for these reasons. KeptSouth (talk) 12:13, 11 November 2010 (UTC
If that were the case, you would have better-served the project to add "the State's positions [that] are articulated in newspaper articles" rather than the tag. I wish you hadn't proposed the AfD—it's utterly silly given the status of the case, and forces me to waste my time defending the article at AfD instead of working on the article. - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 14:17, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Constructive tagging and talk page discussion do not entail an obligation to clean up the article. The responsible tagging nutshell contains another relevant principle: If you identify problems in an article but don't have the time to fix those problems, at least take the time to choose the most relevant and specific tags ... so that others can understand what the problem is and determine if they can do anything to fix it. That is what I did; and in fact, I found about 4 things wrong with the article, but focused on and discussed the most important one, lack of balance. I also edited the article numerous times to improve it pending a determination on the Afd or merger. Sorry you had to respond to an Afd, but defending articles that one creates or substantially edits comes with the territory... if you want it to. No one "forces" a Wikipedia editor to defend an article. By the same token, and in my view, Wiki editors should not presume to tell their fellow editors how they can "better-serve the project". Everything we do here is voluntary. -Best regards- KeptSouth (talk) 08:10, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Removed the balance tag - it is no longer needed now that some arguments for the other side are discussed.- KeptSouth (talk) 12:03, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Re-write of Complaint and motion section

I re-wrote the first two paragraphs of this, and am pasting the table below to show the reasoning for the changes.

Sent. # Currently Explanation My changes
1 The threshold claim of Miller's suit is that Alaska Code § 15.15.360 prevents the State from counting write-in ballots which misspell "Murkowski". The threshold claim in a federal lawsuit is jurisdiction. I put the cite to the Alaska codified statutes in the footnotes to make the text more readable. Miller claims that the Alaska election authorities are violating laws passed by the Alaska legislature because they are using a voter intent standard to determine which write in ballots are validly cast for Murkowski.
2 Section 15 provides, in relevant part, that the voter must write in the space provided "the name, as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy, of the candidate or the last name of the candidate", and that "A ballot may not be counted unless marked in compliance with these rules." To single out certain language as being the "relevant" is original research unless a secondary source which is cited says that it is the relevant section. The quote is overly long, and a bit confusing. I have trimmed it for clarity. Section 15 of the Alaska Code says that in order for a write in vote to count, the voter must write in the "the last name of the candidate" or candidate's name "as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy".
3 Miller argues that "the only acceptable write-in names are 'Lisa Murkowski' or 'Murkowski', and any write-in vote even slightly different should be discounted,"[7] because a voter who wrote in "Mirkowski," for example, would not have written in the candidate's name as section 15 requires.[8] The quotes after Miller argues make it seem as if Miller is saying this in his brief; he is not. The second statement here is a bit of OR. Miller argues this means that the state legislature has determined that write in candidate's name must be exactly spelled. He says that when election authorities count missspelled write in ballots as valid they are effectively overriding a determination of the state legislature regarding the election of a U.S. Senator.
4 Based on this state law claim, Miller invokes federal jurisdiction by claiming that the state's decision to use an "intent of the voter" standard departs from section fifteen and therefore violates Article One of the United States Constitution, a claim "directly descended" from Chief Justice Rehnquist's concurrence in Bush v. Gore.[9] No it is the reverse. The claim is not based on state law, that is what the defendant will argue. Miller is saying the federal ct has jurisdiction because this is a federal question, a violation of the US Constitution by state officials.
5 Article One provides that state legislatures determine the "manner" of elections, and it is argued that non-legislative state actors violate this clause if they depart from the legislature's prescriptions, as Miller charges Alaska has. Miller claims this is a violation of Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution which gives the authority to regulate elections for U.S. Senators to the state legislatures, not to executive branch officials such as the Lieutenant Governor or the Alaska Director of Elections.
6 Miller also claims, based on the Bush v. Gore per curiam opinion, that using voter intent to determine whether a write in ballot should be counted is a change in standards in media res which violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Media res is not mentioned in the complaint - a Slate.com commentator said this argument should have been raised, but was not. Miller also says that the "intent of the voter" standard is vague and will result in arbitrary and varying treatment of the write in ballots at different counting tables. He alleges that the standard violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because under the Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore, state officials must use "specific standards" and "uniform rules" to prevent such variances.

Hope there aren't too many issues here, it is really pretty straightforward summary of the main counts of the complaint. KeptSouth (talk) 10:59, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll go along to get along on changes 1 and 6. Changes 2-5, however, make the article worse, either in terms of style, accuracy, or both, and the rationalizations for them don't hold water.
(1)It is correct to say that "[t]he threshold claim of Miller's suit is that Alaska Code § 15.15.360 prevents the State from counting" misspelled write-ins, because without such a claim, he has no case in any court, state or federal. While jurisdiction is certainly a threshold issue, it is typical to call a claim's fundamental premise is threshold claim. Nevertheless, I'm happy to go along to get along on this language.
(2) See WP:COMMONSENSE. The statute contains several provisions, and only the provisions about write-in ballots are relevant to the lawsuit. Calling it original research to say that the parts relevant to the lawsuit are the relevant parts of the statute is silly if not pointy. Moreover, your revision would make for an inaccurate citation; instead of saying that section fifteen provides in relevant part that blah blah, we'd have to give the pincite, which is a distraction for lay readers.
(3) Not original research. The example is taken directly from the link.
(4) You have misunderstood the issue. Miller makes a state law claim and builds a federal constitutional question on it; that's why the AAG could suggest that the court abstain: such a course presupposes an unsettled state law question. Let me help you to understand this lawsuit. The federal claim is that the Elections Division is acting contrary to section fifteen, and that this violates the Article One perquisites of the legislature. But do you see what we must decide before reaching that question? We must buy Miller's premise that the ED is acting contrary to section fifteen, and that is a question of state law. Hence, "[b]ased on [ ]his state law claim [about the meaning of section fifteen], Miller invokes federal jurisdiction by claiming that the state's decision to use an 'intent of the voter' standard departs from section fifteen and therefore violates Article One of the United States Constitution…." Clear? Without the antecedent state law claim, there is no federal question. The federal question presupposes the state law claim.
(5) I just think my text on this point is clearer than yours, and more so than was the case in (1).
- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 20:40, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

<--Redent Ok, you accepted about 1/3 of my changes "to get along". I too reach reasonable accommodations w/reasonable fellow editors but do not feel it is productive to always make a point of each and every one compromise.

Unfortunately, I have to continue to take exception to some of your reverts. For now, I would like to discuss just one.

Miller argues that "the only acceptable write-in names are 'Lisa Murkowski' or 'Murkowski', and any write-in vote even slightly different should be discounted,"[7] because a voter who wrote in "Mirkowski," for example, would not have written in the candidate's name as section 15 requires.[8]

You say it is not OR because it is taken directly from a source. That is non responsive to my remark that that some changes are needed because it seems to attribute the quote to Miller, and he did not say this. Also when I said the second statement was OR, I was wrong, what should have said was that putting these two statements together was improper synthesis, per WP:SYN. I will be making a few corrections on this sentence consistent with these remarks; and as for the other sentences, perhaps it is best if we both try for a third way to phrase those ideas. In other words, they probably need to be completely re-written rather than reverted-restored-reverted. -Regards-KeptSouth (talk) 12:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Recent changes per my discussion above, to which I did not receive a reply: Refactored confusing sentence. Included discussion of all ideas in earlier version but expanded them using plain English as much as possible per WP:MOS Legal. Removed phrase "based on state law" from discussion of Miller's position - it is really the defense's argument, not the plaintiff's and no where in his complaint does Miller say he is basing his federal suit on state law. diff -KeptSouth (talk) 12:11, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Feh

Still not enough material to warrant a separate article, IMO. The false information in the parent article still hasn't been corrected. It's almost as if this is The Story of Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody all over again.RadioKAOS (talk) 11:38, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree completely and have discussed this below. There is very little new material on this topic since the decision was made to merge - just one court ruling that rejected all of Miller's arguments and the fact he is continuing to appeal - facts that are easily summed up in a few sentences. In other words, there is no new or pressing need for a separate article. -Regards- KeptSouth (talk) 12:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no way the "current event" template can be applied to this article

Removing inapplicable current event template - its purpose is "to warn the editor or reader about the great flux of edits and the fast-changing state of the article" WP:CET - and this is simply not happening here. Check the edit history. One court decision is expected in three days, which may result in a few edits to this article, then the next week Miller will go to another court, which may result in a few more edits. Even if the court cases at one time were "fast changing events", they are no longer such, and also per WP:CET "the template is subject to removal when the event described is no longer receiving massive editing attention". -KeptSouth (talk) 11:31, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Adding multiple issues template

Not too long ago, this article was nominated for deletion with the result on November 19 being to merge into the United States Senate election in Alaska, 2010.See AfD The important facts have been merged, and yet the article was resurrected without any explanation as to why it needed to be a stand alone article. The article was then erroneously branded with a current event tag, though there is no huge flow of information and edits regarding this matter. The only difference between Nov 20 the time it was merged, and Dec 11 the time it was re-posted, is that a few motions have been filed and one court decision rendered which basically rejects all of the arguments Miller has made. These updates can be easily summarized in a two or three sentences. In other words, no change has occurred which suddenly requires a stand alone article.

I believe the content should again be removed and this article turned into a redirect, as the election article contains all the relevant information and is much more comprehensible and accurate. However, I do not have the time or inclination at present to fight the edit war which will invariably occur if I justifiably remove the content of this article per the AfD and revert the page to a redirect. So until I have the time for a pointless relitigation, I believe, that at the very least, this article should be tagged to advise any possible reader of its inaccurate, misleading, unbalanced, and incomplete content. So for now, I will be adding a few well-justified tags. KeptSouth (talk) 11:43, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Here is an explanation of the tags I have added and the reasons why I think they are necessary.
  • Factual accuracy disputed- very poor and unbalanced rendition of court filings, hearings and orders.
  • Confusing - confuses two cases that are simultaneously working their way through the courts, hops around in time at least twice, gives past background in the middle of discussing recent events.
  • Unbalanced because it often discusses at length arguments of Miller without out discussing or adequately discussing the responses by the other side
  • Copyediting needed to summarize, remove the redundancies, and inconsistencies.
Please make improvements and discuss here before removing any of the tags.-Regards- KeptSouth (talk) 12:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
I just had some time to kill, so I improved the article, essentially re-writing it, and removed the tags. KeptSouth (talk) 18:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

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