Last month, Claudia De la Cruz qualified to have her votes officially tallied in 36 states. She was the presidential nominee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.This is the highest number of states that have tallied votes for the presidential nominee of a Marxist party since 1932, when William Z. Foster of the Communist Party received an official tally in 39 states.

Furthermore, De la Cruz would have three more jurisdictions, except that Maine, North Dakota, and the District of Columbia refuse to tally write-in votes even for presidential candidates who filed a write-in declaration of candidacy. De la Cruz did the paperwork in all three places, but no one will ever know how many people voted for her.

There has been little litigation around whether states must tally write-in votes for candidates who file a declaration of write-in candidacy. The Libertarian Party lost on this issue in 2010, involving the District of Columbia.

The other states in which there will be no tally for De la Cruz are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, although it is possible Pennsylvania will count her votes. These states either don’t allow write-ins for president, or they don’t have a declaration procedure and they customarily don’t count write-ins even though they permit them. And in Georgia, De la Cruz was removed from the ballot after the deadline for filing for write-in status.