A lower Pennsylvania state court in Mercer County must decide if a write-in candidate in Pennsylvania is a “candidate” under the law. Pennsylvania is the only large-population state that permits write-ins, but has no procedure for a write-in candidate to file a write-in declaration of candidacy. Beverly Scurpa recently was the write-in winner for Sharpsville School Board. However, after the election, one of the ballot-listed candidates who lost challenged her election. The law says “candidates” must not be polling place officials, and Scurpa was a polling place official. See this story.

Although common sense seems to dictate that anyone who wins an election was a “candidate”, it is possible in Pennsylvania for someone to be elected as a write-in, even if that person had not expressed any intention to run. There are instances in which groups of voters band together to elect someone via write-in votes, even against that person’s interest in holding the job. This generally happens only in very small municipalities that have trouble finding people to fill the local elected offices.