The Utah legislature has passed HB 272. It requires declared write-in candidates to pay filing fees. Write-in presidential candidates would be charged $500. Other candidates would pay one-eighth of 1% of the annual salary for the full term of the office.
Courts in California, Maryland, and West Virginia have struck down filing fees for declared write-in candidates. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that filing fees are unconstitutional except to the extent they protect ballots from being crowded with too many candidates. Requiring write-in candidates to pay filing fees does not serve the interest of keeping a ballot from being too crowded, because the names of write-in candidates are not printed on ballots.
Governor Gary Herbert signed the bill on March 22.
How many is *too many* — 2 ???
IE — ANY body opposing the incumbent HACK monarch ???
Minor cost to count write-ins ??? — esp if they WIN.
See AK USA Senator M — write-in winner — zillion mis-spellings of her last name.
Note again — 14-2 — many write-ins in 1866-1868 ???
The only fair thing to do is make ballot access next to impossible and then charge a filing fee to to file as a write-in candidate and then charge a per vote fee to count the write-in votes so the state doesn’t have the crushing burden of actually having to PAY people to count them and then impose a penalty fee if the candidate doesn’t win thus wasting everyone’s time and money. What the hell, charge DOUBLE the penalty fee if he or she DOES win. There! That’s the ticket!
ANY HACK incumbents or their staffers reading the CL comment ???
What Century will 14-2 be enforced ???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Murkowski
2010 write-in WINNER !!! — small State helped.
Texas charges a filing fee for write-in candidates other than president.
This is unconstitutional. No write-in fees. Let everyone who wants to run for office do so unrestricted.
The cost is minimal to implement this on a computer system. Give everyone who applies a numerical code. Then on the ballot under the write-in section put a series of number ovals to confirm the code for the write-in name.