Presidential Vote Totals Almost Entirely Complete

David Leip of the US Election Atlas here posts the latest presidential vote totals. They are complete, except that Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island still haven’t released the write-in tallies. It is not clear if Pennsylvania will ever do so. There is no write-in filing law in Pennsylvania, and sometimes the state reports totals for some candidates, but other times it doesn’t. In 2020 it reported that Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins got 1,282 write-ins. If Pennsylvania won’t do this for 2024, anyone is free to visit the Elections Office in Harrisburg and ask to see the Official Canvass sent in by each county to the state. Most counties tally the write-ins, although not all of them do.

Rhode Island, which also doesn’t have a write-in declaration law, typically reports all the presidential write-ins, but it takes months, and usually the report comes so late that some of the publications that publish national election returns have already gone to print.

Three U.S. Senators Introduce Constitutional Amendment to Abolish Electoral College

On December 12, three U.S. Senators introduced SJRes 121, a proposed constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college. One of the sponsors, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Il.) is chair of the Judiciary Committee, although he won’t be chair in the new congress. Here is the Committee’s press release about the amendment.

Here is the text. The other co-sponsors are Peter Welch of Vermont and Brian Schatz of Hawaii.

Kansas Secretary of State Still Hasn’t Released Full Election Returns

Kansas is a laggard relative to releasing November 2024 election returns. Kansas has a declared write-in filing procedure, but still won’t release the state write-in totals. The Secretary of State’s office did tell the Green Party state chair that Jill Stein had received 1,773 write-ins, but he hasn’t released this information to the general public, nor has he released the totals for the other declared write-in candidates.

Furthermore, although his website gives the state totals for the candidates who were on the ballot, he hasn’t released the county-by-county numbers. And if someone tries to go to each county clerk website to get the individual county totals, one finds that some counties don’t have the information on their election website.

Several weeks ago I sent a Freedom of Information request to Kansas state government to get the county totals, but it has been ignored.

When one phones the Secretary of State’s office, one is told that only the State Elections Director can furnish the information, and he doesn’t return calls.

Claudia De la Cruz Receives Official Vote Tallies in 36 States

Last month, Claudia De la Cruz qualified to have her votes officially tallied in 36 states. She was the presidential nominee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.This is the highest number of states that have tallied votes for the presidential nominee of a Marxist party since 1932, when William Z. Foster of the Communist Party received an official tally in 39 states.

Furthermore, De la Cruz would have three more jurisdictions, except that Maine, North Dakota, and the District of Columbia refuse to tally write-in votes even for presidential candidates who filed a write-in declaration of candidacy. De la Cruz did the paperwork in all three places, but no one will ever know how many people voted for her.

There has been little litigation around whether states must tally write-in votes for candidates who file a declaration of write-in candidacy. The Libertarian Party lost on this issue in 2010, involving the District of Columbia.

The other states in which there will be no tally for De la Cruz are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, although it is possible Pennsylvania will count her votes. These states either don’t allow write-ins for president, or they don’t have a declaration procedure and they customarily don’t count write-ins even though they permit them. And in Georgia, De la Cruz was removed from the ballot after the deadline for filing for write-in status.

Working Families Party Polled 7.32% for Oregon Treasurer in a Race With a Democrat and a Republican

Last month, the Working Families Party nominee for Oregon Treasurer polled 7.32%, against a Republican and a Democrat. This is the highest percentage a Working Families Party nominee for statewide office has ever received, excluding races with only one major party nominee.

See this story about the Oregon race. Mary King, the WFP nominee, has been a Rhodes Scholar.

Previous to the Oregon 2024 race, the highest percentage the WFP had ever received in a statewide race with both major parties in the race had been in New York in 2022, when the WFP nominee for Comptroller (who was also the Democratic nominee) polled 5.62% on the WFP line.

States in which the WFP had had statewide nominees on the ballot are Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, and South Carolina.