On March 22, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed SB 6058, the write-in filing bill. He did delete the last section of the bill, but that part of the bill seems unimportant. Here is his message vetoing part of the bill, although it doesn’t really explain that part of the bill.
Here is the bill as passed by the legislature. It says write-in candidates who file a declaration of write-in candidacy need not pay a filing fee.
Mere cost to decipher write-in names — with New Age BAD handwriting/printing ???
— see the infamous USA Senate write-in mess in Alaska.
Under current law, a filing fee is required with a declaration of write-in candidacy, but a declaration of write-in candidacy is not required for a vote to count. This has led to situations where write-in votes had to be examined when there was only a single on-ballot candidate. Under Washington’s Top 2, a candidate must receive 1% of the vote to advance. It is trivial to write-in “Donald Duck” or “Not Him” or “Anybody” on a mail-in ballot that you might fill out over days on your kitchen table or desk, and even though nobody was actually running,
The new law requires a declaration of write-in candidacy. A vote for “Donald Duck” is not valid, unless Mr.Duck actually files. But the bill eliminates the filing fee if filing is made before ballots are mailed out (18 days before election day). Write-in declarations made after that day may be made up to 8 p.m. on election day, but will have a filing fee.
Washington will continue to count the total number of write-in votes, but will not tally individual votes unless the write-in candidate could be elected or advance to the Top 2. Washington does report the number of write-in votes on their canvasses. Some counties report their canvass numbers on their website. For some inexplicable reason, the Secretary of State does not. That is, they do not report the official results, even after the results are made official.
It no longer makes sense to not report individual write-in candidate tallies, since a vote for “Donald Duck” or “Bernie Sanders” are no longer valid votes, unless those persons actually file a declaration of write-in candidacy. But if “King Doe” or “Salmon Roe” have filed and you have to count the total number of votes for either, you might as well count the number for each.
The new law would block the gambit used by the Socialist Alternative in Seattle. The SA candidate, Kshama Sawant filed for one House position (In Washington, there are two house seats in each legislative district. Voters vote for both Position A and Position B), and then ran as an informal write-in for the other position. Sawant finished second in both races, and was then able to choose which position to appear on the general election ballot, since state law only permits a candidate to appear once on a ballot.
Washington does not permit sore losers to run, even as write-in candidates, and it also forbids counting of write-in votes for informal sore losers. But Sawant was not a sore loser, and did not file for one position.
But the new law requires write-in candidates to formally declare their candidacy, and this would be subject to the dual candidacy prohibition.
In 1994, Washington was the site of the last US representative to be elected as a result of a write-in campaign. Linda Smith ran a whirlwind 3-week campaign to win the Republican primary as a write-in candidate. This was under the blanket primary so there could be cross-over votes, and the Democratic primary was uncontested. One of the Republican candidates had dropped out, but his name was on the ballot, and Smith received 51% to 27% and 22% for her opponents. Smith then went on to defeat the incumbent Democrat in the general election.
I think the reason for the governor’s veto of the one section is that the vetoed section specifies that write-in votes be counted for declared write-in candidates AND on-ballot candidates. Under current law, write-in votes for on-ballot candidates are valid, even if a voter checks the box next to the candidate AND writes-in their name as an overvote, but they do not have to be tabulated except in close elections.
A quirk of the new law is that it takes effect on June 7, 2018, 90 days after the end of the legislative session, but during the 2018 primary campaign. On-ballot filings are due on May 25. A literal reading would mean that a write-in declaration before June 7 would have to pay the filing fee, but a filing after June 7 and before July 20, when ballots are sent out, would have no filing fee.
NO problem with ballots to/from USA troopers fighting Stone Age barbarians in various places ???
Why must declarations of candidacy be filed in advance of an election at all? A real person could file a declaration with the state after the polls close – if they want to serve. Donald Duck will not be able to file such a declaration. Count all the votes including those classified as illegible and publish all the vote counts.
The respective legislative bodies of the state or federal Congress are the sole judges of their elections. Clearly a majority vote for Santa Claus will have no bearing who gets the seat because Santa can’t show up to be sworn in and that disqualifies him.
These candidate regulations are censorship and harassment intend to drive voters and candidates to the the two-parties or out of competition at all.
@DFR,
If the winner of an election declines to serve, you have a vacancy. You can’t just give it to the runner-up. Under, the new law, Washington now permits candidates to file as a write-in candidate up to 8 PM on election night. If you hear that 1000s of persons have been writing-in your name for an office you had not campaigned for, you can rush down to the election office and file.
If you think you can be elected by sending your ballot to Congress or the legislature, go ahead and try.
It is each house of Congress or a legislature that is the sole judge of their elections. An election contest is a quasi-legal proceeding. You are going to need to produce evidence that you were in fact elected.
@DR, The ballots sent overseas have a write-in space. A write-in candidate can file after most votes have been cast. If you are a serious candidate, you will probably want to campaign before voters have sealed up the envelope and mailed it in. That is just common sense.
TOTAL separation of powers —
ie NO veto by some executive HACK — a vestige of the DARK AGE divine right of kings idiocy.
NO legislator HACKS ruling on the election of any other HACK.
Main 2 things reducing total chaos –
majority rule elections (esp for legislative bodies) and separation of powers
NOT each in ALL DARK AGE regimes in the USA — it shows.
Thus the circus side show stuff about write-ins.