On March 5, the Washington legislature passed SB 6058, which sets up a procedure for write-in candidates to file a write-in declaration of candidacy. The declaration must be filed by 18 days before the election. The bill lets write-in candidates file afterwards if they pay the filing fee for that office.
Unfortunately, the bill does not say that write-in votes for declared write-in candidates must be counted. But assuming this bill is signed into law, it is somewhat likely that a court could order that such votes be counted. The U.S. Supreme Court long ago said the U.S. Constitution protects the right of every voter to have his or her valid vote counted. Thanks to Jim Riley for the news about the bill.
As I recall, it was the presence of write in vote in last year’s Presidential election that kept the Libertarians from qualifying as a party in Washington. Johnson received more than 5% of the votes cast for candidates who had a name on the ballot, but with write ins added to the denominator, he fell below the 5% required threshold. This illustrates that someone who wrote in Mickey Mouse not only wasted their vote (that’s the true definition of wasted vote), but did active harm to the real force that had the best chance to upset the two party system.
WA ballots have an oval/box to show that there is a write-in ??? —
along with the write-in name.
If YES, then the write-in is semi-counted.
Again – 14 Amdt, Sec. 2 —
How many write-ins in 1860-1862-1864-1866-1868-1870 ???
Cost to count each write-in vote ??? — even for Mickey Mouse.
What cost for Democracy ???
@TomP, Under current law, a write-in vote is valid if it is for a declared write-in candidate, or a person who is not on the ballot and whose office is clearly indicated. At one time, some Washington counties used punch card ballots. For mail-in votes there was a guide that indicated the punch-hole number for each candidate. A voter would use the end of an unbent paper clip to remove the chad from the ballot. Write-in votes would be written in a separate location. If you wrote-in Mickey Mouse, you would also have to indicate whether he was your choice for President, Governor, or other office. But Washington now uses paper ballots, and there is a space for write-ins for each office.
Since all ballots in Washington are mail-in it is easy for someone at their kitchen table to write-in something. An expedient county auditor might accept anything – figuring that there might be a person with the last name of “You” or “Above”. Washington requires that the number of write-in votes be canvassed (i.e. are part of the official final result), but somehow decides to not post this information for the public – and add the disclaimer that write-in votes are not included in the “total” votes. Some county web sites do report them. Those that don’t appear to be those that use an interface provided by the SOS.
It appears that around 3.2% of votes for President were write-ins. The new law says that a write-in vote that does not correspond to a declared write-in candidate is not a valid vote. But there were 62 declared presidential write-in candidates, including Evan McMullin. But Johnson only had 5.01% of the vote excluding write-ins. Even if only 1/10 of the write-in votes were for declared write-in candidate, he would still fall below 5%.
In the past, Washington has discouraged declared write-in candidates by requiring a filing fee. The only advantage a declared candidate might have had was that there might be flexibility with spelling, or with an assumption of which office they were running for. But even that assumption was not needed since there is now a space for each office. With the possibility of a lot of random names, a phobia of tallying votes is understandable.
The new law says that a write-in candidate who files 18 days or more before the election (i.e. when ballots are sent out), has no filing fee. Later filing candidates (up to 8 p.m. on election night would have to pay the filing fee). Anyone who is serious about being elected will file before people start filling out ballots.
The goal of the bill appears to simplify processing of Top 2 primaries when there is only one candidate on the ballot. Washington requires 1% of the votes to be cast for a candidate to advance to the general election, beyond finishing in the Top 2. If there is only one candidate on the ballot, more people will write-in something, even if it is “Anybody but Smithers”. Such remarks can easily reach 1% of the total vote, particularly since votes that skip the race are not included in the denominator. They are non-votes, not votes for nobody. Election officials are then forced to tally all these various write-in votes, to make sure that no person received 1%. Under the new law, if there are no filed write-in candidates all these ballots with extraneous markings may be ignored.
What probably is not recognized is that the new law practically requires votes to be tallied. Think about if you were hand counting ballots. If Adams, Benson, and Charles are on the ballot, and Davis and Edwards are declared write-in candidates, you would examine each ballot and place it in a stack based on who it is cast for. You can then go back and count the ballots in each stack and also verify that each is a vote for the candidate. If you come across a ballot with a vote for “Mouse” you place it in a different stack, along with the stacks for undervotes and overvotes. While you could place the Davis and Edwards votes in one stack, which you will later separate if necessary it is foolish to do so. It is just as simple, and easier to verify if you keep separate piles.
The legislative drafters were probably told to maintain the current law that says don’t tally write-in votes except in exceptional cases, not realizing that the new law requires a determination that they are tally-able.