On May 5, the California Assembly passed AB 461 by a vote of 51-21. This bill says, “In the event of a manual recount conducted pursuant to Section 15610 or requested pursuant to Section 15620 or 15621, the process set forth in Section 15342 shall be liberally construed to ensure that each ballot is counted if the intent of the voter can be determined, regardless of whether the voter has complied with the voting instructions.”
If this bill is signed into law, write-ins will count, even though the voter forgot, or didn’t know, to “X” the box next to the name written in. It is ironic that a California bill liberalizing counting write-ins is making headway, at the same time that California has another statute on the books that says write-ins may never be counted in November for Congress or state office. The latter restriction was added in 2009 to implement the top-two system. There is no bill pending to repeal that serious write-in restriction.
The MORONS in the CA regime asking for Bush v. Gore type trouble ???
NO uniform definition of a LEGAL vote in Florida in 2000 – esp. with the now infamous and DEAD punch card ballots.
14th Amdt, Sec. 2 is still around regarding the write-ins.
Why didn’t they amend the section on the counting of write-ins for voter-nominated offices. They should copy the Washington provisions against sore losers running in the general election.