In many states, a new record was set this year for write-in presidential candidates. Probably if all states would count all their presidential write-ins, new records would have been set in virtually all states that allow write-ins.
Bernie Sanders set records in three states that counted his write-ins: in California he got 79,341; the previous high was 58,412 for Eugene McCarthy in 1976. In New Hampshire, Sanders got 4,493; the previous high was Michael Badnarik’s 341 in 2004. In Vermont, Sanders received 18,183; the previous record had 594 in 2012 for Jill Stein.
Rhode Island write-ins are not available yet, but when they are, Sanders probably will have set a new record there also.
Evan McMullin set these records, with the previous record-holder noted in parentheses:
Arizona 17,449 (Ralph Nader 2,062 in 1996)
Delaware 706 (Ralph Nader 156 in 1996)
Illinois 11,655 (John Schmitz 2,471 in 1972)
Kansas 6,520 (Ralph Nader 914 in 1996)
Maine 1,887 (Bob Barr 251 in 2008)
Maryland 9,630 (Ralph Nader 2,606 in 1996)
Michigan 8,177 (Gary Johnson 7,774 in 2012)
Missouri 7,071 (John Schmitz 3,428 in 1972)
Montana 2,297 (Eugene McCarthy 460 in 1976)
Ohio 12,574 (Dick Gregory 372 in 1968)
Pennsylvania 6,472 (Ralph Nader 3,086 in 1996)
Tennessee 11,991 (David Cobb 33 in 2004)
Texas 42,366 (Ralph Nader 9,153 in 2004)
Wisconsin 11,855 (Michael Peroutka 869 in 2004)
Probably McMullin also set new write-in records in Alabama, Alaska, Indiana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, but none of those places tallied his write-ins. He missed the write-in filing deadline in Florida, Indiana, and North Carolina. The other states in this paragraph allow write-ins but won’t tally them.
Jill Stein set a new write-in record in North Carolina: 12,105. The previous record was set by Ralph Nader, with 2,108 in 1996. Nader probably got more write-ins than that in 2000 but he missed the write-in filing deadline that year.
I have McMullin getting 188 votes in Tippicanoe County (LaFayette), Indiana. Ballpark, he would have gotten 8,000 statewide.
That’s very interesting. How did you get that figure? Do you suppose you or anyone else could get it from any other Indiana counties?
How many spelling errors by the voters ???
How many write-in votes NOT counted by a failure to fill in the WI box/oval along with the WI name ???
How many added zillion pages in the final-final-final stats due to the WI folks ???
Richard, I think you meant to say “tabulate(d)” when you said “tally/tallied.”
The write-in votes in many states are tallied, but not tabulated. That is, we know how many write-in votes there were, but the votes are not tabulated according to which candidate got how many.
The one thing I don’t like about Dave Leip’s system is that he includes lots of write-in votes that are not reported as official by the election authority of certain states. Using Florida as an example, Dave reports there were 81,632 write-in votes. Florida’s own official election results say there were only 153 write-in votes. A few other states have reported far less write-in votes than are on uselectionatlas.
Part of the ROT is that the State election hacks do not INSTANTLY report actual turnouts when the polls close —
thus the late late late stuff about write-ins, blank/illegal ballots, etc.
Where is that Model Election LAW ???
It appears that Mike Maturen of the American Solidarity Party likely got the next highest number of write-in votes after Sanders, McMullin and Stein. Certainly distantly so, but still an accomplishment.
@Mark Dunlap,
For Washington see RCW 29A.60.021 where both tabulated and tallied are used.
The meaning of the verb tabulate is to place in a tabular form.
The meaning of the verb tally is to count (votes).
I got the McMullin vote from an article in the LaFayette, Indiana, newspaper. They listed all the write in votes to give an ideal about the different write ins, Snoopy, ect.
Also, Bernie got 179 votes in Tippicanoe County. Ballpark, he also would have gotten about 8,000 votes.
Great, stupid people set new records all over the place. They all need to go. To Hell, and take Trump with them, since he is who they actually voted for by throwing their vote away.
For historical interest, according to the FEC, these were the 2016 write-in totals (“Scattered”) for the states that don’t tally who received them, compared to the previous highest write-ins as well as the 2020 results:
Alabama: 21,712 (4,011 in 2012, 7,312 in 2020)
Alaska: 9,201 (2,870 in 2012, 1,961 in 2020)
Indiana: N/A (18,531 in 2000, 70 in 2020)
Nebraska: 16,051 (3,717 in 2012, 4,671 in 2020)
North Carolina: 47,386 (12,298 in 2008, 13,196 in 2020)
Oregon: 72,594 (13,613 in 2008, 17,089 in 2020)
Washington: 107,805 (169 in 1992, 27,252 in 2020)
Wyoming: 6,904 (4,625 in 2000, 1,739 in 2020)
Also, these states weren’t mentioned in the article, but this is their presidential FEC data on write-in records since 1984, suggesting more write-in records were broken:
Georgia: 13,017 for McMullin (13,432 for Ralph Nader in 2000, 49 scattered in 2020)
Massachusetts: 50,488 scattered (14,483 in 2008, 16,327 in 2020)
Nevada: 28,863 none of the above (6,934 none of the above in 1988, 14,079 in 2020)
New York: 48,343 scattered, 10,397 McMullin (9,076 scattered in 2012, 30 in 2020)
North Dakota: 6,397 scattered (1,860 in 2012, 1,929 in 2020)
West Virginia: 1,104 McMullin (82 for Michael Peroutka in 2004, 16 scattered in 2020)