On November 13, an Alaska Superior Court Judge ruled that five write-in votes should be counted, in the November 3, 2009 election for Haines Borough Assembly. As a result, write-in candidate Daymond Hoffman won the election. See this story.
The five write-in ballots that were disputed said either “Hoffman” or “D. Hoffman.” Elections officials had not counted them, on the basis that they should have said “Daymond Hoffman.” However, for over a century, there has been a general consensus in courts all across the nation that when counting write-ins, the voter’s intent controls.
California courts deviated from that general understanding in 2004 and 2005, when they ruled that write-ins should not be counted if the voter forgot to “X” the box next to the write-in line on ballots. As a result, Donna Frye, a write-in candidate for Mayor of San Diego in 2005, was deemed defeated, even though if such votes had been counted, she would have been elected.
If I remember correctly, the California Court ruled that without the “X” the voter’s intent could not be determined. That is, a person who wrote in Ms. Frye’s name but failed to mark any of the candidate’s name with an “X” was mearly demonstrating that they understood the choices available and was just as likely showing an intent to vote for none of the candidates.
Every time the same issue arose in other states, the courts outside California always ruled in favor of those kind of write-in votes counting. I don’t a reasonable person would ever think that someone who writes a name in on a ballot is just showing off that he or she knows of the existence of the write-in candidate.
In Haines, there was a two vote plurality (439-437) after a recount. In canvassing the result, the borough assembly considered 11 ballots.
1 absentee ballot was received before the election by a voter who had not applied for an absentee ballot, and 5 were from voters not properly registered. These were rejected by the assembly.
There were two absentee ballots that were received after the election date without a postmark. The ballot envelopes had apparently been witnessed, but not dated. The voters had filed affidavits which the assembly considered, before voting not to count the two votes (apparently without opening the envelope, though since the voters had filed affidavits, it may have been known who they voted for). The assembly rejected these ballots on a 4-2 vote.
And then there were 3 ballots in which a complete name for a write-in candidate was not present. What I find pretty amazing is 437 voters managed to spell the name correctly, given the unusual spelling of the first name of “Daymond”. Alternatively, votes for “Damon” or “Damond” or “Daymon” along with a last name, were counted as having a clear intent. Haines Borough does not have a write-in filing process, so there might be an argument made that the intent of the voters is unknown, even if it is probable that the voters were intending to vote for a school board member who was actively campaigning for the office.
The vote of the assembly was 4-3 to reject the 3 ballots, with the mayor exercising the casting vote.
It was these 5 ballots (2 absentee received after the election without postmark; and 3 with an incomplete name that) the judge ordered to be counted.
Incidentally, there were other on-ballot candidates, so that the two leaders had less than 45% of the vote.
How many E-vote scanners do NOT detect any write-ins IF the X in the write-in box is NOT filled in ???
Back to the Florida regime MORONS in Bush v. Gore in 2000 — a LEGAL vote or NOT a LEGAL vote — must be a very simple YES or NO [default is NO].
Bush v. Gore — NO definition of a ***LEGAL vote*** using the various election systems — especially the now DEAD infamous punch card systems — that had the infamous hanging chads, dimpled ballots, etc. — NO clear YES or NO votes.
Result – see the U.S.A. HAVA law sentence written especially for the 2000 MORONS in the entire Florida regime – legislative, executive and judicial.