Alabama and Pennsylvania minor party activists this year will insist that their write-in votes be tallied, and will sue if their demands are not fulfilled. They hope to persuade elections officials to become allies, in the fight for better ballot access laws, by this technique.
Alabama and Pennsylvania are two of the four states with a Democratic-Republican ballot monopoly this year for all statewide office. Furthermore, both states typically refuse to provide an official state tally of write-in votes. Neither state even has a procedure by which a serious write-in candidate can file a declaration of write-in candidacy. Therefore, technically, the law in both states requires that all write-ins be canvassed. But both states routinely break their own laws, and do not provide a state canvass of write-in candidates’ totals.
Pennsylvania minor party activists are about to submit a list of write-in candidates who desire that their write-ins be tallied. Pennsylvania did tally Ralph Nader’s write-ins in 2004 and 1996, but otherwise has never done such a tally in a statewide general election. Candidates for Pennsylvania statewide office who are requesting a state tally of their write-ins are Russ Diamond (independent for Governor), Ronald Satz (Libertarian for Governor), Marakay Rogers (Green for Governor), Hagan Smith (Constitution Party for Governor), Thomas Martin (Libertarian for U.S. Senate), Carl Romanelli (Green for U.S. Senate), and Carl Edwards (Constitution Party for U.S. Senate).
In Alabama, Loretta Nall, Libertarian candidate for Governor, will make a similar request.
It is far more trouble for elections officials to count write-in votes, than votes for candidates listed on the ballot. It is hoped that if elections officials realize they must cope with counting and tallying write-in votes this year, they will be allies when state legislatures are asked to ease the ballot access laws next year.
Shades of fake ‘independent’ and faux ‘maverick’ Sandy Ego City Council member Donna “Surfer Girl” Frye, the stealth Democrat loyalist pretending to be a true loose cannon and peoples’ candidate! Frye could have been the first WRITE IN victor as mayor of a large United States metropolitan city— if she had truly assembled a wide spectrum good government coalition! What it is —is that as unfair and out right obstructionist that the Democan /Republicrat process is for Non Democrats and Non GOP, ‘we’ are often our own worst enemies!
Actually in Pennsylvania write-in votes _are_ counted on the county level. The Secretary of the Commonwealth has the task of compiling the write-in figures from the counties. Rather than tabulating the more important write-ins (such as those with more than 100), the SOC creates a column for all write-ins and then *destroys the returns submitted by the county boards of elections*. I would be willing to tabluate the write-ins to save the SOC employees’ time if they would allow me to do it.
Earlier SOCs did tabulate the more important write-in candidates in some situations, such as the presidential primaries before the Shapp administration. For example, the 1964 presidential primary results are given here:
http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=35961
http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=35962
From time to time, I do research in government repositories, and on occasion I take the time to look at some historic election returns. I have found unbelieveable errors in the SOC numbers. In the 1976 Republican presidential primary in PA, some of Reagan’s votes were left off the state canvass, although they were reported. In one county, the SOC only reported a fraction of Reagan’s vote reported by the counties.