On July 2, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed SB 121. Wisconsin already permitted write-ins and already said that they should be counted for candidates who had filed a campaign finance report. But, except for presidential write-ins, the old law did not specify a deadline for such a campaign finance report to be filed. The bill says write-ins shall be counted if the write-in candidate files a campaign finance report by noon on the Friday before the election (however, presidential write-ins already had a write-in filing deadline that is somewhat earlier, and their own rules on filing).
Wisconsin is to be commended for allowing very late filing by write-in candidates. A major purpose of allowing write-in votes is to allow for last-minute unexpected events that might cause the need for late entry of write-in candidates. Yet states like Texas, Florida and Ohio set write-in filing deadlines several months before the election.
The only relevant last-minute event would be a death of one of the candidates, in which case the proper thing to do would be to cancel the election, and hold a special election.
There are other last-minute events which could occur that would necessitate a write-in campaign. Examples would include (as ahs happened in the past) a Ku-Kluxer winning a Democratic nomination, an on-ballot candidate’s being revealed to have been a criminal or sexual “pervert,” a candidate being completely out-of-synch with his party but getting nominated by “first past the post.” Whatever, there are many, many reasons why voters need the escape valve of write-in candidaes. And write-in votes ought to be counted!
Another last minute event was in Minnesota in 1990, when the Republican gubernatorial candidate was found to have gone swimming nude in his family swimming pool at a time when his 12-year-old daughter had lots of her girlfriends over to the house for a swimming party.
The party was hosted by Jon Grunseth, and included many adults. There were allegations made during the campaign about what happened nine years earlier.
But why would it have been bad if the candidates had remained the same?