Sixth Circuit, by 2-1 Vote, Says U.S. District Court Was Correct to Expedite Michigan Recount

Posted on by December 6, 2016
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On December 6, the Sixth Circuit voted 2-1 that the U.S. District Court was correct to expedite the Michigan presidential recount. Stein v Thomas, 16-2690. The two judges in the majority were Eric Clay, a Clinton appointee; and Bernice Donald, an Obama appointee. The judge in the minority is David McKeague, a Bush Jr. appointee.

Meanwhile, the Michigan legislature, which has a Republican majority, is advancing a bill to provide that candidates who lose by more than 5% in the initial count must pay the entire cost of recounts. The bill is intended to be retroactive. Current law requires a substantial payment from candidates who request a recount, but the state says the legal requirement for Stein’s payment amount is not nearly enough to pay for the recount.

Jill Stein Sets New Record for a Write-in Presidential Candidate in North Carolina

Posted on by December 6, 2016
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The North Carolina State Board of Elections has finished its election returns for the November 8, 2016 election. Jill Stein received 12,104 write-ins for president. This is the largest number of presidential write-ins ever recorded in a North Carolina general election. The previous record had been Ralph Nader’s 1996 showing of 2,108.

It is conceivable that Ralph Nader might have received even more than 12,104 for president in North Carolina in 2000, his strongest year. However, because he didn’t qualify to have his write-ins tallied in 2000, no one will ever know. North Carolina won’t tally presidential write-ins unless the candidate files and submits a petition signed by 500 registered voters.

The November 2016 returns also show that 47,381 write-ins for president, for candidates other than Jill Stein, were cast. North Carolina county election officials were thus obliged to examine a total of 59,485 presidential write-ins, in order to tally the Stein write-ins. This was undoubtably costly and time-consuming. One hopes that North Carolina county election officials will realize that if Stein had been on the ballot, taxpayer money and resources would have been saved. If county election officials asked the legislature for a liberalization of the ballot access laws, at least for president, the legislature might listen. Thanks to Kevin Hayes for the news.

Alabama Legislature Passed Bill in August 2016, Providing that Write-in Votes Need Not be Counted in Most Cases

Posted on by December 6, 2016
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In August 2016, the Alabama legislature, meeting in special session, passed HB 19. It went into effect immediately. It was introduced August 15, 2016, and was entirely enacted on August 24, 2016. It says that write-in votes should not be counted unless the total number of write-ins for a particular office is greater than the margin between the winning candidate’s total and the second-place candidate’s vote total.

Alabama never has had a write-in declaration of candidacy law. Until this law took effect, all write-ins were valid and all were to be counted. In past presidential elections, the Secretary of State would not tally any write-in state totals, but the counties were required to tally write-ins and to report them to the Secretary of State. Although the Secretary of State would not tally statewide totals for any write-in candidate, the Secretary would include copies of the county write-in results on his web page. So, in the past, it was possible for anyone to tally them, but because the state totals didn’t come from the Secretary of State, none of the books that tally nationwide election returns would ever include any Alabama write-in totals. Therefore, in practice, HB 19 won’t have much effect.

The bill was initiated by Alabama county election officials, who disliked doing the work of recording the write-in votes. Thanks to Joshua Cassity for this news.