At the November 8, 2011 election in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, a voter wrote this message on his or her ballot in the space reserved for write-ins: “Both candidates corrupt and belong in prison or dead.” The Monroe County Elections Board asked the District Attorney to try to learn the identity of the voter who put this on the ballot, and to determine whether the message deserves criminal prosecution for conceivably making a threat. See this story. Thanks to Mel Kaplan for the link.
The once beacon of blind ballots is threatened daily. If they find out who it is, then maybe who ever said it is correct. The people have a right to express their feelings at the polls, whether the politicians like it or not!
How will they figure that out? Are they going to subpoena writing samples from everyone who voted in that precinct?
PS
Pennsylvania has a very loose definition of “making terrorist threats.” I worked security at a hospital there for several years and saw many people put in the mental ward and later charged with “making terrorist threats” for comments such as, “I wish you were dead.”
According to the story, the same voter put other comments on the ballot about his or her personal dispute with some of the officials named on the ballot, so it seems possible they can identify the voter if they want to badly enough.
Since when does Pennsylvania look at write-in votes? I still haven’t seen any complete numbers for the 2010 election. They should mind their own business.
ILLEGAL to make ANY comments on a ballot — those old special marks ???
What if the *or dead* was omitted ???
What if the *corrupt* was treason/ insurrection/ tyrant type corruption ???
What if a question mark had been added to the comment ???
What if the ballot had words like FOOL, MORON, IDIOT, INSANE, etc. written next to the names of the candidates ???
Freedom of speech in a rather small public forum — a voting booth ???
Remember, if the voter didn’t mark an “x” next to the write-in vote it doesn’t count so neither should the threat!