Although news reports have said the Alabama Secretary of State would tally up the write-in votes cast for U.S. Senate on December 12, 2017, now the office says it will not do that. Instead it will let visitors to the Secretary of State’s web page look at the tally each county provided. But there won’t be official statewide totals for any write-in candidate. Anyone who wants to know how many write-ins any particular candidate received will be obliged to add up the figures provided by each county. Hence any total that anyone compiles won’t be “official.”
Furthermore, some of the county reports are in handwriting, and some of these reports are difficult to read.
The official totals for Doug Jones and Roy Moore will be released on Thursday, December 28.
Is there any election LAW in the AL regime or is the regime one giant LAWLESS / ad hoc regime — having arbitrary stuff dreamed up by HACKS ???
See the arbitrary stuff in Bush v. Gore 2000 — FL regime full of HACKS
— NO legal definition of a legal vote (esp. with the then punch card paper ballots)
>>> USA 2002 HAVA LAW — written to deal with MORON HACKS in the States.
Regarding the *handwriting* stuff —
How about a const amdt to abolish STONE AGE regimes ???
— IE merge them with regimes having at least 1860s typewriters and adding machines.
The statute, which was passed in 2016, is somewhat ambiguous. In a county election, a tabulation of write-in votes is required only if the number of write-ins is greater than the difference between the top 2 candidates. In addition, an elector may request tabulation – but that must be paid for by the requester. Otherwise only the number of write-ins is canvassed.
The tabulation of write-ins is done at the time of counting of provisional ballots. In the case of a statewide race, the SOS orders the counties to tabulate the write-in votes, which was done in Alabama. It is somewhat ambiguous whether the SOS needs to tabulate the statewide write-in votes.
The statute says that write-in votes are only permitted in municipal general elections, but they also say that federal special elections be conducted in the same manner as general elections, unless there is a specified difference.
I don’t know Richard Winger’s source, or whether the county canvass reports are handwritten. Since the tabulation of write-in votes is a reimbursable expense, the SOS could require printed reports.
In Madison County, there were 367 individual write-in candidates, including 317 who received one vote, including Roy Moore, Doug Jones, and Doug Moore. There also 139 votes rejected because they did not name a person by first and last name. Some were listed by title, or an honorific. But in Morgan County, these types of votes were not separated out. I don’t think there was any attempt to associate the names with a particular individual, or determine whether they would be qualified. Perhaps Alabama should let individuals claim their write-in votes, in which case they could be officially recorded.
But the best solution would be to switch to Top 2, and permit a Neither of These Candidates box. If NOTC wins, then the seat would be left vacant, and a new election held.
One more reason to abolish Stone Age regimes
— that are UN-able to write UN-ambiguous election laws
— which ALL must be YES or NO at ALL steps in the election process
— in order to NOT have LAWLESS stuff by tyrant HACKS.
I have always thought that if you allow write-in votes, you count the write-in votes. Period. I don’t care if that means more work, it’s an election, who can complain about more work being put into making sure we have it right? I’m just frankly disgusted with election officials ignore write-in votes, especially in cases like this. It’s not as bad as Indiana having “official write-in” choices and then having 20+ counties not even count them individually, but it’s just an awful way to do elections.
Cost to eyeball and record each New Age write-in vote (in BAD handwriting) ???
— compared to costs of other public stuff
— such as eyeballing the BAD handwriting of 6-10 year old kids ???
My source was my phone call to the Alabama Secretary of State’s office.
and where on the AlabamaVotes.com website can one find the county level data as anything other than:
Doug Jones (DEM)
Roy S. Moore (REP)
Write-In
???
@DWP, The state canvass is tomorrow.
http://www2.alabamavotes.gov/electionNight/chooseCounty.aspx?ecode=1000915
AL Counties — subject to JR item above
Perhaps polling places should provide label makers for write in votes so that they are legible. You can get a label maker from Staples for as low as $20.
Good idea. Problem is some states, like South Carolina in 1954, don’t or didn’t allow stickers. It has to be literally written-in on the ballot. Plus one label maker times the number of voting places equals ??$$
Stickers would likely cause ballot scanners to fail/jam.