Rocky Anderson, the Justice Party presidential candidate, filed last month as a declared write-in presidential candidate in the District of Columbia. On October 1, he asked the D.C. Board of Elections to tally his write-ins. His letter explains that Title 3, section 6, of the U.S. code requires jurisdictions with presidential electors to tell the National Archivist the exact number of votes received by each qualified candidate for presidential elector.

In 2008, Libertarian nominee Bob Barr was the only presidential candidate who filed for write-in status in D.C. The D.C. Board did not tally his write-ins. The Libertarian Party sued, but lost. However, the lawsuit did not mention the national law about tallying votes for presidential electors, because when the Libertarian case was filed, the party didn’t know about this law.

As far as is known, Anderson is the only declared write-in presidential candidate to have filed in D.C. as a write-in. However, the deadline is not until near the end of October. It isn’t easy to file for declared write-in status in D.C., because the candidate must certify the names of three presidential elector candidates who have lived in D.C. for the last three years. Candidates on the ballot in D.C. this year, besides the two major party nominees, are Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.

On October 2, Suffolk U/WSUN-TV released the results of a Florida presidential poll. This poll is very unusual because it asks the respondents about each of the twelve presidential candidates on the ballot. The results: President Obama 46%, Mitt Romney 43%, Roseanne Barr 1%, Gary Johnson 1%, Jill Stein 1%. The other seven candidates had less than 1%. Undecided is 7% and refused is 1%. Thanks to Mike for the link. Scroll down to Question 14.

On October 2, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Maloney refused to order Michigan to count straight-ticket votes for the Libertarian Party for the party’s slate of presidential electors. His 14-page opinion ignores the precedent set in Michigan in 1960, when Michigan let the Independent American Party appear on the ballot with unpledged presidential electors. Instead, the decision meanders into the history of U.S. presidential elections before the 12th amendment was adopted in 1804. Before the 12th amendment was adopted, presidential electors merely voted for individuals without specifying whether the intent of their vote was to vote for that individual for President or Vice-President. That has nothing to do with this case, Gelineau v Ruth Johnson.

The various federal judges who have ruled in the Michigan Libertarian presidential ballot access cases this year have ignored all these precedents in their opinions: (1) in 1980, Michigan didn’t interpret its “sore loser” law to include presidential primaries; (2) in four other presidential elections, Michigan printed the names of presidential or vice-presidential candidates who aren’t even qualified under the U.S. Constitution on the ballot; (3) the 1960 precedent mentioned above. The mark of a good judicial decision is to rebut the points of the losing side. The mark of a bad judicial decision is to ignore the losing side’s points. The quality of the Libertarian Michigan decisions this year has been low.

The judges have interfered with the free choice of voters. Michigan cast over 5,000,000 votes for President in 2008. Assuming the same number of voters vote again this year in Michigan, and assuming at least 1% of them would choose to vote for the Libertarian ticket (which is not unrealistic, given the polls that show Johnson above 1%, sometimes as high as 4% nationally), the judges have disenfranchised at least 50,000 voters. Fortunately the Secretary of State will recognize write-in votes for Gary Johnson. The judges in these cases are so hostile, probably if the Secretary of State had also refused to count write-ins, the judges would have approved that prohibition as well.