Write-in rules in Missouri
If Akin won’t quite the race, perhaps there’s some charismatic Missouri Republican who would jump in to challenge him in a write-in campaign?
It really depends on how the polls shape up. But unfortunately, there’s no chance under Missouri law of simply writing in either of Akin’s Republican challengers from the primary (who even at the time seemed more popular than he):
If a candidate files for nomination to an office and is not nominated at a primary election, that candidate cannot file a declaration of intent to be a write-in candidate for the same office at the general election. (Section 115.453(4) RSMo)…
If a candidate is on the ballot for an office, write-in votes are counted only for the candidates who have filed a declaration of intent to be a write-in candidate with the proper election authority. (Section 115.453(4), first sentence)
I think it’s an unnecessarily restrictive law, but I guess the Missouri legislature disagreed.
[ADDENDUM: I just found something I was looking for in vain when I wrote this post—the rules governing who can vote in Missouri’s senatorial primaries. Interestingly enough, crossovers are allowed. This may explain Akin’s unanticipated win in the first place.
I think completely open primaries are a travesty. They are especially dreadful when only one party has a contest and the other features an incumbent, which means that there is no real penalty for crossover votes designed to sabotage the opposition party. A terrible idea, and an open invitation to dirty tricks. This was the situation in this year’s Missouri senatorial primary: McCaskill was the unopposed incumbent, and the Republican primary was hotly contested among many candidates.]
I think the idea is to prevent “sore-loser” campaigns, where someone gets defeated in the primary, and runs in the general election anyways.
Kind of like Sen. Murkowski from Alaska. She lost in the primary, but won as a write-in candidate in the general election.
Of course, that’s unusual. Usually a campaign like that ends up splitting the vote, and allowing the opposition candidate to win.
I can see why people don’t want that scenario. But it does leave you with the situation where the primary winner turns out to be fatally flawed, and cannot be replaced easily.
A write in will not work–it jsut throws the election to the Democrats. I think that that seat is now lost.
The GOP should try to keep the damage down ticket now.
Rohan: I think you’re correct. But I still think people should be free to write in whomever they wish, and still have their votes counted.
hogwash: and your point doesn’t make much sense, because if you think the election is already lost to the Republicans, then there’s nothing further to lose from a write-in candidacy.
Lisa Murkowski was successful at it. Of course, she was a well-known and previously-successful politician in her state. But each of Akin’s opponents had consistently polled higher than Akin, so if one of them wanted to take him on, that person might actually be able to win the election at this point. However, both are precluded from even trying, which I think is a very bad result of the Missouri law.
MO had an open primary- Democrats were allowed to cross over and vote Akin in. Despicable, and it’s one reason why we’re stuck with him now. Some people are openly speculating about him being a moby plant. I don’t know about that… I think that at worst, he has Democrats urging him on and giving him a false sense of security about his campaign.
I know a lot of people complained that there were too many cooks in the kitchen as it was during the primary, but there has to be SOMEONE in MO who didn’t run. I agree, Neo, if Akin won’t leave the easy way, we’re going to have to do it the hard. What he said was bad enough.
The fact that he refuses to bow out gracefully before the story gained traction is just the moldy cherry on the fetid pie.
Book: could you include a link saying that Missouri had an open primary for senator? I did some research on that when I was writing this piece, and I didn’t find anything that indicated that it was the case.
Missouri has a open presidential primary, but that’s a different election on a different date than the senatorial primary in that state.
[Actually, I just found it! It seems you are correct. That makes the whole thing far more interesting—and yes, there might have been many crossover votes leading to Akin’s original selection.
I do not understand the philosophy behind open primaries. Seems like a terrible idea.]
Open primaries may make sense in states where one party is totally dominant. In the old South the winner of the Democrat primary was going to win the general election. Allowing Republicans to cross over gave them some input. Also, some states require runoffs and a majority to win an election. In Missouri that would have solved the Akin problem.
It is alleged that McKaskill’s campaign encouraged people to vote,cross-over, for Akins, having picked him as their most-desired opponent.
The basic Akins issue is pretty trivial. Obama, Sir Golfsalot, can talk about 57 states and all shrug, but Akins, not exactly a biologist, sustains a stupid self-inflicted wound chattering about raped women biologically rejecting the result of the impregnation, and the journo-driven world explodes. The man was in an enemy camp-he was being questioned by a journalist.
Missouri deserves whichever of these wretched people they elect as Senator, but why foist either on the rest of us?
Well you could be in Washington state, where the top two vote getters face a run off. And that means we get a lot of Dem vs Dem elections.
I don’t really understand why this can’t just be decided by the folks in Missouri. From what I’m reading, McCaskill’s been pretty awful. Are we really to the point where a statement like this disqualifies someone from office, regardless of how effective they might be as a legislator? His comment actually made more sense in the context of the interview, although I can’t say I agree with him.
And it’s too late to run Steelman as a 3rd-party candidate. The filing deadline was end of July. So the only hope is a write-in for somebody like former Sen. Kit Bond.
Someone needs to make Akin an offer he can’t refuse. Maybe he would like to be an ambassador to New Zealand.
“Maybe he would like to be an ambassador to New Zealand”
How about Pluto?