North Carolina requires declared write-in presidential candidates to submit 500 signatures. This sounds easy, but in practice is not. Jill Stein is the only write-in presidential candidate who has enough signatures, according to this page at the Board of Elections. The Constitution Party believes that it submitted enough valid signatures but that some counties refused to check them by the deadline. Monica Moorehead of Workers World Party also submitted over 500 signatures, but was told she didn’t have enough valid.
The largest number of write-ins for president in a general election in North Carolina ever recorded was the 2,108 Ralph Nader received in 1996. He didn’t file for write-in status in 2000. Nor did Jill Stein file in 2012.
“Jill Stein” should be really easy to write on a ballot. But it’s amazing how inept someone can be when it comes to voting. Will North Carolina assist voters in writing the name in correctly? Or will they allow misspellings?
For over 120 years, state courts have ruled that voter intent controls, and that election officials must count write-ins if it is obvious whom the voter meant to vote for. There is even an article about this subject in a very old legal encyclopedia. The most recent instance was in 2010, when the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that write-ins for U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski do count even if her name is not spelled correctly. Anyway, North Carolina posts a list of the write-in candidates in each polling place.
When Strom Thurmond ran in 1954 and won as a write in candidate for senator from South Carolina, the state Election Board said as long as it was reasonably spelled the vote would be counted. They did rule it had to be written in at the right place on the ballot, and stickers could not be used.
I didn’t even know she was running since it wasn’t on my ballot.
on 8/11/16 some clod named Clay wrote: “Jill Stein” should be really easy to write on a ballot. But it’s amazing how inept someone can be when it comes to voting. Will North Carolina assist voters in writing the name in correctly? Or will they allow misspellings?
Clay should check his history regarding the presumed inept nature of all north carolinians. highly generalized negative statements about an entire group or population is tantamount to fascism. And, is exactly why it is important to vote. i am a phd from north carolina and living in north carolina. Apparently, Clay has not visited the Carolina’s in the post-reconstruction period.
I’m so tired of hearing people call other voters stupid.
I’m not the smartest person in the world, nor the dumbest. I am a Jill Stein supporter, and I’m very familiar with seeing her name online, on signs, etc. I knew I could write her name in, and I intended to do so. Yet when I went into the voting booth, and looked at the blank write-in space on the ballot, I thought omg, is her name spelled with an “ie” or “ei?” I didn’t notice any postings of any signs with allowed write-ins on it. None of the election workers said anything about how to write in a candidate. You’re not allowed to use your phone to google a spelling verification (or anything) once you’re there. I was able to just write both spellings down on a scrap piece of paper and saw that of course, “Stein” looked right and “Stien” looked wrong. So I spelled it correctly … but it’s not an unreasonable mistake to make. I could also imagine some people writing in “Stine.” Should that count? According to the law, it seems it should. However, North Carolina is not famous for fair elections. I hope that poll workers’ subjective judgement of voter intent in write-in values is audited and checked for consistency and legality. What an awful lot of extra manual work that could have been avoided if they’d just put her on the ballot like a normal state.