On September 2, the District of Columbia Board of Elections transferred the case Libertarian Party v D.C. Board of Elections from the D.C. court system, to a U.S. District Court. The case is now civil action no. 09-5836, before Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, a Clinton appointee.
The issue in the case is whether the D.C. Board of Elections should have tallied the write-in votes for Bob Barr last November. Barr had filed as a declared write-in presidential candidate and submitted names of presidential elector candidates, but the Board simply announced that a total of 1,138 miscellaneous write-ins had been cast for president, and didn’t say how many were for Barr.
The U.S. Constitution protects the right of a voter to have his or her valid vote counted. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Roberts (of D.C.) wrote in 1999 in Turner v D.C. Board of Elections, “When a citizen steps into the voting booth to cast a vote, he or she intends to send a message in support of or in opposition to the candidate or measure at issue…The message of the vote is received when the election results are released thereby completing an important communication by the public to the government…the result of votes properly cast in a properly conducted election are core political speech…To cast a lawful vote only to be told that that vote will not be counted or released is to rob the vote of any communicative meaning whatsoever.”
Also relevant is Bush v Gore, which says, “Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the state may not, by disparate treatment, value one person’s vote over that of another.”
Nothing in the Constitution about the right to vote in the Dumb City area and even in any U.S.A. territory or in any U.S.A. colony.
Const Amdt NOW —
Uniform POSITIVE definition of Elector-Voter in ALL of the U.S.A.
Gee — U.S.A. citizen, 18 plus, not crazy or in jail – really tough to write.
Repeal lots of the NEGATIVE language – 14th Amdt, Sec. 2, 15th Amdt, 19th Amdt, etc.
You would think that if a state (or DC) sets up a procedure for having official write-in status, that they would then count the votes cast for those candidates. I know that Virginia does, having lived there (although they don’t do it right away). What is the point otherwise? Why have the procedure? It seems to me that this is basic democracy, the right of every voter to have his or her legitimate and lawful vote cast, regardless of who the candidate is, whether or not the candidate won, whether or not the candidate received a large number of votes, and whether or not the candidate’s name was on the ballot or was listed as an official write-in. This is all about convenience and resources trumping basic fairness and equality.