New Hampshire is one of the states that allows write-in votes for president in the general election, but doesn’t have a procedure for a presidential write-in candidate to file a declaration of write-in candidacy. In recent past presidential elections, the Secretary of State has rather arbitrarily decided which candidates to tally. For instance, in November 2012, he tallied write-ins for Jill Stein and Ron Paul (who was not a declared candidate in the general election), but no one else.
This year, he tallied write-ins for any presidential candidate who requested a tally. However, many bona fide presidential candidates who were not on the New Hampshire ballot didn’t realize that if they asked for a tally, they could get one. That is why the Secretary of State tallied write-ins for Evan McMullin, but not candidates such as Darrell Castle. McMullin received 1,064 write-ins in New Hampshire.
In 2016 the Secretary of State also tallied write-ins for certain people who had run in the presidential primaries this year, but were not candidates in November and did not request a write-in tally: Bernie Sanders 4,493; John Kasich 1,365; Jeb Bush 230; Marco Rubio 136; Ted Cruz 129; Rand Paul 98; Ben Carson 83; Vermin Supreme 58; and Chris Christie 23. And he tallied write-ins for these prominent persons who did not run in any presidential primaries this year: Mike Pence 937; Mitt Romney 540; Paul Ryan 280; John McCain 127; and Joe Biden 55.
The failure to count write-ins for Darrell Castle seems unfair, because Castle filed a declaration of candidacy to get on the ballot, but didn’t appear because his petition didn’t have enough valid names. He was the only person who filed a declaration of candidacy to get on the ballot but whose petition was rejected.
