On December 28, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously that declared write-in presidential candidates must submit the name of a proposed vice-presidential running mate. Carlson v Simon, A16-1533. Here is the 12-page decision, which says, in essence, presidential candidates who qualify to have their names printed on the November ballot must have a running mate, so it is not unfair to require declared write-in presidential candidates to also have a running mate.

The case was filed by Steve Carlson, whose presidential campaign was so insubstantial, he was not on the ballot in any state and he did not file as a declared write-in presidential candidate in any state except Minnesota. It is ironic that anyone sued Minnesota over its write-in presidential procedures, because Minnesota has one of the most permissive such laws in the nation. Write-in presidential candidates need not file until seven days before the election, and they only need one presidential elector candidate. Minnesota is so easy, there were 24 declared write-in presidential candidates, and Minnesota tallied the votes for each of them, except that Carlson received no tally because he didn’t submit a v-p candidate.

States that ought to be sued by declared presidential write-in candidates are the ones that won’t tally the votes of such candidates: Alaska, D.C., Nebraska, North Dakota, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. Thanks to Jim Ivey for the link.

This year, the Virginia State Board of Elections won’t tally the number of votes received by the various declared write-in presidential candidates. This is the first time the Board has failed to count such votes since Virginia has had write-in space on the November ballot for President. Before 1997, Virginia ballots lacked any write-in space for president, but SB 667 in 1997 added write-in space to the presidential part of the ballot. It passed unanimously.

The Board says the law forbids the votes from being tallied unless the write-in total was at least 5% of the total presidential vote. However, the law the Board cites, 24.2-675, has existed since before 1997. Yet in 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012, the Board did tally write-ins for declared presidential write-in candidates.

The declared write-in candidates in 2016 who are injured by this law include Darrell Castle, Rocky De La Fuente, Tom Hoefling, Chris Keniston, Larry Kotlikoff, Mike Maturen, all of whom did have their votes counted in a majority of states.

In 1964 the U.S. Supreme Court said in Gray v Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, at 380: “All qualified voters have a constitutionally protected right to cast their votes and have them counted. Every voter’s vote is entitled to be counted once. It must be correctly counted and reported.”

Maryland State Senator Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County) has introduced SB 64, to let registered independents join a party during the early voting period in primaries. Here is the bill.