A thought experiment: The Miller-Murkowski battle is exactly the same, raising exactly the same legal issues as it does now. But one of the two candidates is a Democrat, the other is a Republican, and control of the Senate rests on resolution of the misspelled votes.
Eugene Volokh, linking to my Slate piece, nicely summarizes the difficult questions raised by this case. Just imagine how much heat this question would raise, and how everyone’s motives would be questioned, if something more than the single Senate seat depended on how the question of counting misspelled votes was resolved.