On December 14, West Virginia and California state elections officials finished tallying the votes, so now all results are in, except that Alaska, the District of Columbia, Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming have not tallied any write-ins for any presidential candidates (although some of those states have tallied the total number of presidential write-ins). States that would have counted write-ins for any declared presidential candidates, but in which no such candidates filed successfully, are Missouri, North Dakota, and Tennessee. States that don’t permit write-ins for President are Arkansas, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and South Dakota.
The West Virginia returns for the candidates who were on the ballot are: Mitt Romney 417,655; President Obama 238,269; Gary Johnson 6,302; Jill Stein 4,406; Randall Terry 3,806 (independent). West Virginia write-ins will be released next week.
The California returns are: Obama 7,854,285; Romney 4,839,958; Johnson 143,221; Stein 85,638; Roseanne Barr 53,824 (Peace & Freedom); Thomas Hoefling 38,372 (America’s Independent Party); and these write-ins: Ron Paul 21,461; Rocky Anderson 992; Virgil Goode 503; Stewart Alexander 82 (Socialist); Jerry White 79 (Socialist Equality); James Harris 72 (Socialist Workers); Stephen Durham 54 (Freedom Socialist); Sheila “Samm” Tittle 6.
It appears the national returns are now: Obama 65,587,127; Romney 60,848,326; Johnson 1,273,667; Stein 466,877; Goode 121,823; Barr 67,318; Anderson 42,397; Hoefling 40,601. Check back here later for national totals for the other candidates who were on the ballot in at least one state.
The AIP has over 400,000 registered voters, so why are their vote totals always so low for president? Gary Johnson received more votes then registered Libertarians.
Because a lot of people who register with the AIP think they’re registering as independents. They have nothing to do with the actual party.
#2, I think that was true in the past, but for the last 5 years, at least, California voter registration forms seem very clear that the AIP is a political party and that if the voter wants to register independent, he or she won’t make that mistake.
The form now asks question 14, “Do you want to choose a political party preference?” Under that there is a checkbox on the left that says, “No party preference.”
On the right, the form says, “Yes, my political party preference is (check one):” and underneath that is a list of all the qualified parties, each one of which has the word “party” included in the party name.
I still don’t know that they are aware that the AIP is a conservative political party. Given the name, one might assume that it is centrist in nature.
The vote totals are a bit higher at this website:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AjYj9mXElO_QdHpla01oWE1jOFZRbnhJZkZpVFNKeVE&f=true&noheader=true&gid=19
There are still a lot of old voter registration forms around as well as people who have not registered or re-registered since the forms have changed. Many people do not pay close attention to the form and the word independent just jumps out at them. Also, many people may be confusing it wit everything from the LP/Ron Paul to Nader/Greens to Perot/Reform/Centrists.
And even out of the ones who have some idea that it was a party formerly affiliated with George Wallace and later with the Constitution Party, many might not like Hoefling; they may have voted for Romney, written in Ron Paul, voted for Gary Johnson, not voted for president (or not voted at all), etc. A very few voted for Goode.
#5, the Google popular vote checker is still using unofficial New York state totals. For some reason the unofficial New York state totals are higher than the official totals. Notice there is no asterisk on the Google Vote Checker page. The asterisk means the author is using unofficial totals which were privately gathered from the counties, several days before the official totals came out.
Re: AIP
It’s also a good sign that people aren’t sheep and don’t always vote along party line.
How many of the nonvotes are felons, invaders, functional illiterate folks, etc. (even outer space folks) ???
#7: the totals on the Google/Dave Wasserman spreadsheet align with the results in every county except for Oneida (probably an error on the NYS side as the Oneida County unofficials match the Wasserman totals and Oneida County cast around 80K votes in 08 and 12), Otsego (obv entry error, as the Wasserman total is 12177 and the NYS total is 12117) and Tompkins County.
But the returns posted by NYS are provisional in the following counties due to various factors (mainly the hurricane): Albany, Clinton, Dutchess, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Greene, Hamilton, Montgomery, Nassau, New York City, Saratoga, Schenectady, St. Lawrence, Suffolk, Ulster, Warren, Washington, Westchester.
So the totals could go up a bit more before it’s official-official.
“David Says:
December 14th, 2012 at 4:11 pm
The AIP has over 400,000 registered voters, so why are their vote totals always so low for president? Gary Johnson received more votes then registered Libertarians.”
It’s mainly because the vast majority of people who are registered to vote in California under the American Independent Party banner have no idea what it is or that it is even a political party for that matter. These people mistakenly believe that by checking this box on their voter registration form that it means that they are registering as independent, however, to do this in California, they are supposed to check the Decline To State A Political Party box.
“Richard Winger Says:
December 14th, 2012 at 4:38 pm
#2, I think that was true in the past, but for the last 5 years, at least, California voter registration forms seem very clear that the AIP is a political party and that if the voter wants to register independent, he or she won’t make that mistake.”
A lot of people are not that careful when they fill out the form, as in they don’t take the time to read everything, so a lot of them still mistakenly think that the American Independent Party is the same thing as independent.
#10, thank you very much. That is very interesting information.
There is a significant percentage of voters who believe that “Independent” is a “party.” They do not think of “Independent” as being the same as “unaffiliated” but rather that it is one of three “party” possibilities, but the one that is not Dem or Rep. They do not think that it is the AIP or Wallace or any other group, they think it is “independent” and that it is a “party.”
So even though it is listed with other 3rd “parties” they still think that this is the appropriate designation for someone who is actually unaffiliated (even though they don’t understand the term) and therefore independent.
In other words, they are too dumb to know better.
#13, If you look at the registration statistics before an election, the AIP usually does particularly well. For example between the 60-day and 15-day reports before the 2012 election, total registrations increased by just short of 1 million, while AIP registrations increased by 43 thousand, or a little better than their 4%. This is about 50% better than their existing registration.
#14, a few years ago, Santa Cruz County made a deliberate effort to encourage voters to register as “Independent” which it classified as among the other miscellaneous parties, rather than DTS. Its online instructions emphasized that American Independent was not independent. Since Proposition 14, they have switched to reporting these registrations as NPP – but this might be only on their reports to the SOS.
Los Angeles and Alameda counties both have a very large share of NPP voters. I suspect that also are classifying write-in “Independents” as miscellaneous other parties rather than NPP.
The current registration form’s blank line on which people can write in their own partisan choice or possibly the word “independent” is so short, that would discourage anyone from writing “independent.” The space is only three-fourths of an inch long. Also it’s very narrow.
Jim Riley,
One thing Richard Winger and you are missing the the practice is
different by election official in different counties in California.
In Imperial County there are a lot of HAVA forms in use to register. Many electors write in “Independent” as party.
Then the Imperial County Registrar of Voters staff member phones
them and ask them the following question. “Was it your intention
to register as your party preference by using “INDEPENDENT” on
your registration form the American Independent Party?
I was informed that every person that receive the question always
answers in the affirmative.
I ran the question of this practice personally with Secretary of
State Debra Bowen. She told me that the practice done in Imperial County was the correct practice. (Our meeting was in Los
Angeles.)
As to the practice in Santa Cruz County please give more details.
I find that practice would confuse voters. Telling votes that
“American Independent was not independent” would be very incorrect information to an elector that wants to register to vote.
As to the 3/4 on an inch same, please note the larger space on the HAVA generated form.
By the 15 day report the American Independent Party of California
stands at 477,129 California Electors.
What was the change in San Francisco County? Reason for the question was during the primary all ballots in San Francisco were printed as AIP ballots during the June, 2012 election.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Vice Chairman, American Independent Party of California.
#17 voters are either independent,registered to a political party or don’t vote. Isn’t that what an independent is, one who belongs to no political party. The AIP is a political party.
how many votes did Sheila “Samm” Tittle get in the whole nation?
Then the Imperial County Registrar of Voters staff member phones
them and ask them the following question. “Was it your intention
to register as your party preference by using “INDEPENDENT” on
your registration form the American Independent Party?
I was informed that every person that receive the question always
answers in the affirmative.
See @14 as to why.
And what is YOUR explanation why Hoefling only got 1/10 or less of the votes as are registered AIP?
As to the practice in Santa Cruz County please give more details.
I find that practice would confuse voters. Telling votes that
“American Independent was not independent” would be very incorrect information to an elector that wants to register to vote.
Why would telling people accurate information be incorrect?
As to the 3/4 on an inch same, please note the larger space on the HAVA generated form.
That probably accounts for a large chunk of why people continue to register AIP by mistake.
I personally registered several thousand people to vote in California while gathering signatures on petitions, and I never had one person check the American Independent Party box on purpose (as in who knew that it was a political party, and what the party stood for, and that they wanted to be registered to vote under that party’s banner).
That seems to be the story from many people.
#19 Samm Tittle got 1767 in Louisiana and 791 in Colorado (on the ballot). For write-ins she got 6 in California and 6 in Arizona. So thats a grand total of 2,570. She finished 21st of the top 29 (including Ron Paul and Santa Claus who both polled enough write-in votes to finish ahead of candidates appearing on a ballot)
Rocky Anderson was an ‘approved’ write-in in TX. I wrote him in on my ballot. I look at politico.com and I see 0 votes for Rocky Anderson. He should have at least one … mine. What do you think of that?