Great Britain does not permit write-ins. This is mostly because the ballot access laws are so tolerant, anyone in Britain who wants to get on the ballot for House of Commons generally is able to do so. This BBC article, intended mostly for British readers, explains how write-ins work in the U.S., with special attention to write-ins for President.
The United States can learn from Europe and Australia.Those country’s have more party on the ballot for Parliamentary races.Maybe some countries have proportional voting to.Maybe The United states and Canada should unite.i would prefer Justin Treadeaux for my president.
Canada has far fewer people than the US. They would have to have an American president.
To stand for Parliament all you need is £500 for the deposit (which is returned if you get more than 5% of the vote) and be nominated by 10 people living in the constituency.
Political parties are responsible for selecting their candidates and generally only party members can take part in those selections. The parties place a limit on how much people can spend on the campaign to be selected which generally allows for the creation of a website and one or two mailings to party members.
On the ballot paper candidates are listed in alphabetical order of their surname. They can add a ‘description’ which is generally the name of the political party they are representing or ‘Independent ‘. There is no priority for incumbents or political parties on the ballot paper. So the sitting MP does not appear at the top.
To stand for local council I would need the support of 10 electors in the ward I want to represent. I don’t have to live in the ward but I do have to be on the electoral roll for anywhere within the local council area (there are some minor exceptions). I can stand as an independent or as nominee of a party – the nomination criteria are the same.
In the UK if you write a name on the ballot paper it will be rejected at the count and only included in the total of rejected ballots.
This article was well written and very good. When I first registered to vote some years ago, the elections clerk told me that folks who write-in Mickey Mouse waste her time (the clerk was a woman).
Richard, in the BBC article, the reporter mentioned the late 1990s case from Tennessee where the GOP opponent killed his Democratic rival. You mentioned the widow of the slain Democratic candidate won as write-in. He did she get on the list? Most web accounts I’ve read just say she won. One article I saw suggested the widow got votes for other offices (besides the one she won).
I came across a booklet explaining the 1872 Ballot Act, which provided for the Australian ballot in the UK. It said that under the act, it was no longer possible for someone to be elected, without being nominated.
At that time at least, nominations took place within a short while (a couple of hours), where a nominator and seconder would deliver a petition with signatures of eight subscribers to the returning officer. If more than one person was nominated, the returning officer would arrange for a poll (i.e. what in the US would be refer to as election day). The ballots did include a description of the candidate, but that was their address, and occupation. The party name was not on the ballot until quite recently.
In Britain each election is separate. So 650-odd elections are conducted by 650-odd returning officers in 650-odd constituencies. If a nominee dies in the few weeks between the making of nominations and polling day, the election is cancelled. It doesn’t matter if the death is due to an accident, illness, or political assassination.
Jim – ‘Australian Ballot’? Think you mean it introduced the secret ballot.
In the case of the death of a candidate it depends if they are representing a registered political party or an independent. If a party then the election is postponed and delayed poll is held (not a by-election). If the candidate was an independent then the election continues as normal.
“Australian ballot” is the American technical term for the preprinted secret ballot, because it was first used in Australia. I guess that isn’t current language elsewhere.
ChrisinEngland,
Many areas of the United States had used paper ballots since at least the late 18th Century, but voters simply would write in the names of the candidates they favored on a sheet of paper. It had been ruled early on that names could be machine-printed on the ballot, and newspapers and political parties would print ballots with their candidates names and distribute them to supporters. Elections might be held in the open, where the public could observe the balloting.
Other uses of “secret” do not have positive connotations (e.g. secretive, secret society, secret deal), and ‘secret ballot’ can be viewed in a similar light. In addition, paper at one time was a precious commodity. Voters if they wished, could scratch out names, and write-in names.
There could be all kinds of abuses. Political parties would print ballots with different colors, or different sizes, or different weights of paper. Voters could be expected to show which ballot they were voting as they walked to the ballot box. Ballot papers could be folded inside one another. Parties could try to disrupt distribution of ballots from other parties. Supposedly neutral sources such as newspapers might print ballots with various candidates missing. But since there were no formal nominations, they might use news judgment in determining who to list. There judgment might be deliberately faulty. Political parties could charge fees to list a candidate on their ballot. Ballots with different candidates could be distributed. In large letters the ballot would read “REPUBLICAN” or “DEMOCRATIC”, but down ballot, there would be candidates of other parties listed.
Voters might be offered a free lunch in exchange for a ballot. Or an employer could arrange transportation of workers to the polling place, and hand them ballots.
In some cases efforts were made to make ballots secret. There might be a requirement that they be folded. Some states passed laws requiring ballots be placed in sealed envelopes, with the state providing the envelopes. But the legislature might at the next session make the use of an envelope optional.
The argument would be made:
Open voting is manly. If someone is not willing to stand up for their political beliefs, maybe they should not be voting. A voter who furtively places a sealed ballot in the ballot box, is probably an arsonist at best, if not an outright terrorist. Note the current effort to promote ballot selfies is likely an effort to coerce voting in a certain way. Why else would you refuse to post your ballot on Facebook or Twitter rather than to hide that you voted for Trump or Clinton? Everybody else is doing it and its fun and new and guaranteed under the Constitution.
Government-printed ballots were intended to correct these abuses. Election officials could control distribution of ballots at the polling place, and ensure that “all” candidates were on the ballot. A voter could mark their ballot in the privacy of a voting booth.
The method of introducing the secret ballot in South Australia and Victoria in 1856, and in the United Kingdom in 1872 was to provide government-printed ballots, distributed at polling locations.
It spread to the United States (plural) beginning around 1890. Since the emphasis in the United States was not strictly on the use of paper ballots, or even secret ballots, but rather government-printed ballots were called “Australian ballots” from where they originated, and a US-based history would refer to their introduction in the UK as “Australian ballots” and it is likely that they aren’t referred to as “Australian ballots” in Australia.
Because the use of paper ballots in the United States was based on writing or printing names on a sheet of paper prepared by the voter, some persons believe the ability to write-in a candidate on a government-printed ballot is a fundamental right.