Question Three, the Massachusetts top-two initiative that is on the ballot next month, says the top two vote-getters in the primary go onto the general election ballot. It doesn’t exclude persons who receive write-in votes in the primary. So if it passes, and Massachusetts continues to have many many primaries with only one candidate on the primary ballot, the election officials will be obliged to examine all the write-in votes in such primaries and determine which individual placed second. And that person will go on the November ballot, even if he or she doesn’t even wish to run.

Although Massachusetts permits write-ins in primaries currently, code section Ch. 53 sec. 40 says in primaries with no name printed on the ballot, a write-in candidate can’t be nominated unless he or she gets a number of write-ins equal to how many signatures the person would have needed to be on the primary ballot. Virtually always, the vote-counting machines tally up the total number of write-ins and that number is smaller than the number needed for a nomination, so no one bothers to tally up how many write-ins each write-in “candidate” received.

Although many states have laws saying a declared write-in candidate can file to have his or her write-ins tallied, Massachusetts has no such law (except Massachusetts does have such a law for write-in presidential candidates in the November election).

Question Three doesn’t amend Ch. 53 sec. 40, but that section only applies to races with no one on the primary ballot (for example, most Republican primary ballots for legislative races). With Question Three in force, there will be one name on the primary ballot, so in such races Ch. 53 sec 40 won’t apply. So in order to find out who placed second in the primary, election officials will need to sift thru all the miscellaneous write-in results to figure out who came in second.

As to how the other top-two states handle this: California does have a procedure for write-in candidates to file a declaration of write-in candidacy, and those candidates get their write-ins in the primary tallied. If there is only one name on the primary ballot (which always happens in about a dozen California legislative primaries) and there is a single declared write-in candidate, that person does place second and is on the general election ballot. Candidates with as few as 3 write-ins in the primary have then appeared on the November ballot.

Washington state, by contrast, says no one can qualify for the November ballot, even if they do finish second with write-in votes, unless they get a number of write-ins equal to 1% of the total vote cast in the primary.