New Hampshire is one of the few states that permits write-ins, yet has no law asking write-in candidates who want their write-ins tallied to file a declaration of write-in candidacy, before the election.

In states like this, one never knows whether the state elections officials will do a tally of write-in candidates. Fortunately, this year, as well as in 2004, the New Hampshire Secretary of State, on his own, has voluntarily made such a tally. His office says that Richard Kahn, Libertarian write-in candidate for Governor last month, received 323 write-ins.

Pennsylvania is now the only state with a combination of severe ballot access (in 2006), which also has a bad record on tallying write-ins (like New Hampshire, Pennsylvania has no law on write-in declarations of candidacy). We still don’t know if Pennsylvania Dept. of Elections will do a write-in tally for any of the known minor party write-in candidates.