The Orange County Register has this story about write-in candidates in California primaries for top-two offices. It features the race for the 59th Assembly district, where the only candidate whose name is on the June 7 primary ballot is the Republican incumbent. Two write-in candidates have qualified to have their write-ins counted, a Libertarian and an independent. As the story notes, whichever one of them gets the most write-ins will have his name on the ballot in November. The California Constitution says the top two candidates qualify for November, regardless that the person who places second might be a write-in candidate who gets only a handful of votes. The record low vote for a California top-two race in a primary, who placed second, is 3 write-ins received by a Peace & Freedom candidate a few years ago.
The California Secretary of State is expected to announce the list of qualified write-ins by the end of the day on Friday, May 27, for all congressional and legislative elections.
The newspaper story gives an incomplete account of write-in candidates for congress in the general election who have won. There are three write-in winners for Congress from California alone, from the general election: (1) Charles F. Curry, Jr. in 1930, from the 3rd district; (2) William F. Knowland for the 1946 special U.S. Senate election (the two month term); and (3) Ron Packard in 1982 in the 43rd district from Orange and San Diego Counties.
Ballot Access News gives an incomplete account of the write-in candidates in California.
In 1930 Charles Curry, (Sr) was the nominee of both Republican and Democratic parties. He had held the district for 9 terms and had been SOS for 12 years before that. He died on October 10, 1930, less than a month before the election. His son Charles Curry, Jr. was elected as a write-in in which all candidates were write-ins. It is possible that many of his votes were for his father.
Under modern laws, the deceased Curry would likely been re-elected then a special election held (see the initial Top 2 election after the death of Jenny Oropeza).
Senator Hiram Johnson died on August 6, 1945. Governor Earl Warren offered the Senate seat to Joseph Knowland who declined. Warren instead appointed Knowland’s son William Knowland. Knowland served as the appointed senator from August 26, 1945.
He ran for a full term in the November 1946 election and was elected. Simultaneously, he was elected in the special election for the final two months of a term he had already served 14 months. Almost 5 times as many votes were cast in the regular election, as the write-in election.
FRI May 27 ???