Here is a link to the Vermont presidential election results, which are not final. They show that 6.9% of the voters cast a write-in vote, and 7.3% of the voters voted for a minor party or independent candidate who was listed on the ballot. Probably the vast majority of the write-ins are for Bernie Sanders. The Vermont Secretary of State will tally them in the near future. Thanks to Austin Cassidy for the link.
Never before have the voters of any state cast as much as 3% of their vote to any particular write-in candidate for President in a general election. The previous record had been the Ralph Nader write-in in 2000 in Idaho. He got 2.45% of the vote.
I can’t believe I did this, but I scrolled through the entire write in list, because I was curious how well Evan McMullin did with selling himself as a write in candidate. I counted 517 votes that could be interpreted as votes for McMullin. I say “interepreted” because I noticed all sorts of variations, including various spellings of his last name, instances where he was written in with his running mate (both versions), and instances where there were variations on his first name (for example, I saw “Even”, “Kevin”, “Eva”, just to name a few).
If you didn’t think before that his selling himself to the American people as a plausible write in candidate was a fraud, read that list, and you will come away with that impression. This is the perfect illustration of what’s wrong with selling yourself as a write in candidate — there is so much room for error in that process. He was perpetrating a fraud in the American people to do this.
This is also a reason why having a ballot line is so important and why ballot access laws need to be opened up.
I hope Donald Trump will be another Herbert Hoover.So the right ward shift will shift again.
One more MINORITY RULE Prez — i.e. one more EXTREMIST H-A-C-K.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Obvious longer term remedy — DIVIDE the USA –Pacific coast States, Central / SE States, NE Atlantic coast States
— with lots of moving deals for folks getting the Hell out of each area.
— to see which ones survive the left/right power mad control freak statists in control of each group.
Nothing new in world history — local folks find other folks and their politics/*culture* to be INTOLERABLE.
See the 4 July 1776 DOI.
Sanders had about 15,000 write in votes. That will put him in third place statewide.
@TomP: McMullin’s problem was not that he failed to teach people how to spell his name correctly so that his write-in votes would count. His problem was that he began the race as a complete unknown with no political experience, didn’t raise a lot of money, didn’t get on many ballots, didn’t campaign in most of the country, and ended the campaign still mostly unknown to most of the public. In fact, I don’t think I have ever heard McMullin’s voice on television, radio, or Internet.
His campaign seemed to be based mostly on winning Utah and trying to throw the race into the House of Representatives. Any write-in votes he happened to garner were just a bonus; I don’t think he was making a serious play to win anywhere on write-in votes.
Now it has the write-in votes totaling 7.16%
Some people being too stupid to spell a candidate’s name properly is not an example of that candidate engaging in fraud.
How many wrong spellings of Sanders ??? — with or without any first name wrong spellings.