More on Lisa M

A few followup items on Lisa Murkowski's write-in campaign for Senate in Alaska.

First, Slate's Explainer discusses the "How badly can you spell Murkowski but still have your vote count?" issue: What Happens If You Misspell A Write-In Vote? An interesting read, echoing what I discussed. From a journalistic perspective, I'm interested that they spelled out the "dirty version" of Sekula-Gibbs' name, rather than hinting at it.

Second, Rick Hasen on his Election Law Blog discusses why she's running as a write-in Republican rather than run "on ballot" as an Independent or pick up the standard of a third party. (There's no link to just the article).

Hasen notes that no less a political eminence gris as Cokie Roberts proffered a plausibly political, but clearly incorrect explanation for Murkowski running a write-in campaign. Roberts suggested on NPR that Murkowski made a decision to run as a Republican, rather than as an independent to show that she's the real Republican candidate, and will be a Republican if she is re-elected to the Senate. Plausible, but shows an interestingly myopic vision of election law.

Maybe not even myopic; perhaps completely ignorant of the more likely reason: Murkowski didn't have a choice. Murkowski wasn't allowed to run as a Libertarian, reports Political Wire (It's unclear from the report whether she requested either the ballot line or the meeting); and Alaska law prevents her from officially entering the race as an independent candidate. Alaska, like many states, has what is sometimes known as a "Sore Loser Law," that, one way or the other, prevents a candidate that loses a party primary from switching parties or running as an independent. Accordingly, Alaska requires that independent candidates must have registered before August 24, the day of the primary election, which prevents a loser from just adding themselves to the ballot. In Alaska, a losing candidate may only run as a write-in, unless another party had an officially-registered candidate who then withdraws; in that case, anyone may step into that candidate's shoes. Other than the Democrats and Republicans, only the Libertarians were running a candidate... thus, once the Libertarians spurned her, her only choice was to run as a write-in.

And, sorry, Cokie, write-ins don't have a party. (Although I agree that Murkowski's best bet is to run as the "real Republican" and hope that Joe Miller has an "I-dabbled-in-Witchcraft" moment.)


http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/08/25/alaska-politics-blog-suggests-new-candidates-could-conceivably-enter-u-s-senate-race/