The Washington Secretary of State has denied qualified status to the Libertarian Party on the grounds that Gary Johnson did not get as much as 5% of the vote, when write-ins for president are included. However, Johnson got 5.01% of the presidential vote if write-ins are not included. The official election returns on the Secretary of State’s web page does not include any write-ins.
Federal law, Title 3, section 6, requires states to tell the national archives the number of popular votes received by each candidates for presidential elector. Here is the Washington state certificate. It does not include any write-in votes. Therefore, by the state’s apparent own admission, there were no valid write-in votes. Washington state, which has a write-in filing procedure, does not require write-in presidential candidates to submit a list of presidential elector candidates, which means that presidential write-ins in the state are not valid.
I hope the Libertarian party of Washington can identify an alternative partisan unity candidacy for Secretary of State very soon in an effort to facilitate understanding of this injustice. Even if such a candidacy is ultimately a placeholder, it would still be worthwhole.
Gee — nonstop violations of the 12th Amdt — which only mentions lists.
ABOLISH the INSANE Electoral College N-O-W.
Well, if the Washington Secretary of State is going to say all write ins are valid, perhaps supporters of Evan McMullin or Bernie Sanders can call their bluff and demand they count those write ins and report then.
A web site is not an official election return.
You might want to request a copy of the canvass for President directly from the SOS. They provided a link in response to a query on their Facebook page, but it doesn’t appear to be complete.
Under Washington law, a declaration of write-in candidacy is not required for a write-in vote to be valid. In the event that a write-in candidate for president received the largest number of votes, they would have to address the issue. Perhaps it is a void in the law. What would happen if none of the electors showed up?
I think you are interpreting 3 USC 6 too literally and narrowly.
Have you looked at the North Dakota SOS web site, and the North Dakota certificate of ascertainment? Would you be satisfied if Washington did the same?
A government web site is an official election return.
Because of the existence of the internet, almost every state has stopped printing books of official election returns. If one were to ask for election returns on paper, invariably the state election office would refuse and tell the person to just use the state web page.
I am extremely dissatisfied with the North Dakota certificate of ascertainment and I have been in contact with the North Dakota office. The North Dakota presidential write-ins are omitted from the state’s certificate of ascertainment, even though six write-in presidential candidates filed a slate of write-in presidential electors. I believe the North Dakota certificate is flawed. The Secretary of State office merely says that is the way they have been doing it starting with the 2008 election. In 2004 and earlier years the state did report the write-in totals for declared write-in presidential candidates.
See North Dakota Century Code 16.1-12-02.2(1)(e)
Paragraph (1)(e) was added by HB 1497 enrolled on April 12, 2005, as Chapter 184, Section 12 of the 59th Assembly.
Your correspondent with the Secretary of State office may have been careless in not stating the reason for the change which was due to a statutory change made in 2005, which was after the 2004 election and prior to the 2008 election. I assume your use of “merely says” is your interpretation of the communication.
I would be mightily surprised if there is not a state canvass recorded on paper, placed in a filing cabinet in the SOS office in Olympia. It appears from the certificate of ascertainment, that Jay Inslee saw the actual canvass, though this is not 100% certain.
In the past, States may have published blue books with “official returns”. These would not be facsimiles of the canvass, but results compiled from the canvass. Various Washington counties have published their canvasses online, and they do include the number of write-ins, overvotes, and undervotes.
On the Washington Elections Facebook page, the SOS office gave a link to the canvass, but part of it was greeked. Would you like for me to find a link to the actual canvass?