Randall Terry Received More Votes for U.S. House than for President

Randall Terry, well-known activist against legal abortion, ran for president this year as an independent candidate, and he also ran as an independent candidate for U.S. House in Florida’s 20th district. In his presidential race, in the three states in which he was on the ballot (Kentucky, Nebraska, and West Virginia) unofficial tallies credit him with 12,491 votes, plus an unknown number of write-ins in certain other states. But in his U.S. House race, where he was the only opponent to Democratic incumbent Alcee Hastings, he received 29,481 votes.

Associates of Terry ran as independent candidates for U.S. House in two Kentucky districts. Andew Beacham, in the 2nd district, received 6,304 votes; David Lewis, in the 4th district, received 8,673.

Connecticut Secretary of State Web Page Erroneously Shows Rocky Anderson Carrying Towns of Wallingford and Woodbury

Connecticut seems to have completed its official tally already. See here. The tally shows that Rocky Anderson polled 19,399 votes in the state, but this seems to be an obvious error, because the official tally shows that Mitt Romney received zero votes in Wallingford, and that President Obama received 9,259 votes in Wallingford, and that Anderson received 11,559 votes in Wallingford. There is a similar mistake for the town of Woodbury.

If Gary Johnson Polled 50,000 Votes in New York, Opportunity Exists to Sue to Overturn New York Definition of “Political Party”

No one knows yet if Gary Johnson received as many as 50,000 votes for President this month in New York state. The preliminary total for Johnson, gathered by the news media, is 42,452. However, the total on election night in New York state, as in most states, is far below what the final total will be. In 2010, New York city finished its official canvass on December 2, 2010, and the final results were 17% higher than the election night total.

The New York State Board of Elections did not release 2010 election returns until December 13, 2010, and chances are the 2012 results will not be known until mid-December 2012.

New York state defines “party” to be a group that polled 50,000 votes for Governor. When this definition was written, New York state elected its governor every two years. There is a plausible argument to be made that it is unconstitutional for a state to make it literally impossible for a group to become a “political party” at any point during a presidential election year. New York and Indiana are the only states in which a group cannot qualify as a “political party”, except on election day in mid-term years.

In 1980, the Libertarian Party polled 52,648 votes for President, and after the election was over, filed a lawsuit, alleging that it had shown enough voter support to qualify as a political party. However, the attorney who filed the lawsuit erroneously sued the New York Secretary of State, instead of the State Board of Elections, which was a fatal procedural flaw.

Federal Law Seems to Require States to Tally Write-in Votes for President, if that State has a Write-in Declaration of Candidacy Procedure

3 U.S. Code, section 6, is titled “Credentials of electors; transmission to Archivist of the United States and to Congress; public inspection.” The text of this law seems to require jurisdictions with electoral votes to count the write-in votes for all declared write-in presidential candidates, if that state’s write-in declaration procedure has provision for the write-in presidential candidate to also submit a list of presidential elector candidates.

Jurisdictions in which various minor party presidential candidates did file in 2012 for write-in status, and yet which in the past have refused to tally such write-ins, include Alaska, the District of Columbia, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. In Alaska this year, Virgil Goode filed for write-in status and included a slate of presidential elector candidates. Rocky Anderson did the same in the District of Columbia. It is believed that Jill Stein did the same thing in Wyoming.

The law says, “It shall be the duty of the executive of each State, as soon as practicable after the conclusion of the appointment of the electors in such State by the final ascertainment, under and in pursuance of the laws of such State providing for such ascertainment, to communicate by registered mail under the seal of such State to the Archivist of the United States a certificate of such ascertainment of the electors appointed, setting forth the names of such electors and the canvass or other ascertainment under the laws of such State of the number of votes given or cast for each person for whose appointment any and all votes have been given or cast.”

The Constitution Party intends to ask the Alaska Division of Elections to follow this law and to tally the number of write-ins cast for Virgil Goode, and the Justice Party had already made the same request to the District of Columbia Board of Elections.