Ronald Miller was a write-in candidate for the Taylor, Michigan School District in November 2016. Shortly after the election, he checked the election returns in each precinct and learned that he had won one of the seats. However, when the city’s votes were officially tallied by the Wayne County Board of Commissioners, the Board excluded all write-ins in which his name wasn’t spelled properly. Therefore, the Board determined that he was not elected.

He sued to overturn the vote tally. On July 27, a state court agreed that Miller had been elected. See this story. For over 130 years, it is been basic law in the United States that the intent of the voter controls, when write-ins are being counted; perfect spelling is not required.

Taylor, Michigan, is a city of 63,000 population, near Detroit. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

On July 27, the South Dakota Libertarian Party, and the South Dakota Constitution Party, filed this brief against the state’s March petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties. Libertarian Party of South Dakota v Krebs, 4:15cv-4111.

The case was filed in 2015, and is still in U.S. District Court. It argues that the deadline is too early, especially given that winter in South Dakota is generally harsh for outdoor petitioning. After the case was filed, the legislature changed the deadline from March to July, but only for parties that want to be on the ballot for president and certain state executive partisan positions. The March deadline still applies to parties that want to run for Congress, legislature, or Governor.

In 2016, the Libertarian Party was unable to get its party petition finished by the March deadline, but it met the July deadline, so it was on for President and Public Service Commissioner, but no other offices.

The new national registration totals for the United States, in the 32 jurisdictions in which the voter registration form asks the applicant to choose a party, are:

Democratic 44,706,349 (40.30%)
Republican 32,807,417 (29.57%)
independent & misc. 30,818,334 (27.78%)
Libertarian 511,277 (.46%)
Green 258,683 (.23%)
Constitution 97,893 (.09%)
Working Families 52,748 (.05%)
Reform 5,204 (.00+%)
other parties 1,684,317 (1.52%)

The number of registered voters in the 32 jurisdictions with partisan registration is 110,942,222. That is lower than the national registration in November 2016, which was 112,518,979. It is normal for the number of registered voters to decline in the months after an election, due to list purges.

In November 2016, the percentages were: Democratic 40.60%; Republican 29.37%; Libertarian .44%; Green .23%; Constitution .08%; Working Families .05%; Reform .00+%; other parties 1.50%; independent and miscellaneous 27.72%.

In the few states that have separate numbers for active and inactive voters, this compilation uses only the active voters.

All of the data is as of mid-2017, except the California data is from February 2017; the Pennsylvania data is from April 2017; the Connecticut data is from late 2016; the Florida minor party totals are from November 2016; and the Massachusetts data for the unqualified parties is from November 2016.