No sooner had Sen. Lisa Murkowski starred in an advertisement supporting the preservation of ranked-choice voting, than she evidently has no intention of ranking in the presidential race. Ranking, evidently, is for suckers.
Murkowski, a registered Republican, told the Anchorage Daily News she will not vote for either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. If she is telling the truth, that leaves her the choice of ranking six other candidates.
That leaves her candidates like radical Aurora Party Cornel West, Libertarian Chase Oliver, or Green Party Jill Stein. It’s difficult to imagine that moderate Murkowski would vote for any of those arguably fringe candidates.
Ranked-choice voting was, Murkowski and proponents promised, going to provide more moderate candidates. The system in Alaska was designed to help Murkowski avoid going through a party primary, which she would never again be able to win after her hostility to President Donald Trump.
But the presidential candidates go through the party nomination or petition process, and are not subject to the open primary. Thus, they are candidates who reach the ballot the old fashioned way — via the parties themselves — a system she cannot support.
But she’s also said she was voting for Democrat Mary Peltola for Congress, and appears to be unlikely to fill in the bubble for Nick Begich as her second choice. She has refused to even meet with Begich. Murkowski mentioned Peltola in her endorsement to sympathetic news media outlets, and did not indicate she would be ranking anyone else.
