All Votes for Presidential Candidates Who were on Ballot are Now Counted

Posted on by December 14, 2012
24

On December 14, West Virginia and California state elections officials finished tallying the votes, so now all results are in, except that Alaska, the District of Columbia, Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming have not tallied any write-ins for any presidential candidates (although some of those states have tallied the total number of presidential write-ins). States that would have counted write-ins for any declared presidential candidates, but in which no such candidates filed successfully, are Missouri, North Dakota, and Tennessee. States that don’t permit write-ins for President are Arkansas, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and South Dakota.

The West Virginia returns for the candidates who were on the ballot are: Mitt Romney 417,655; President Obama 238,269; Gary Johnson 6,302; Jill Stein 4,406; Randall Terry 3,806 (independent). West Virginia write-ins will be released next week.

The California returns are: Obama 7,854,285; Romney 4,839,958; Johnson 143,221; Stein 85,638; Roseanne Barr 53,824 (Peace & Freedom); Thomas Hoefling 38,372 (America’s Independent Party); and these write-ins: Ron Paul 21,461; Rocky Anderson 992; Virgil Goode 503; Stewart Alexander 82 (Socialist); Jerry White 79 (Socialist Equality); James Harris 72 (Socialist Workers); Stephen Durham 54 (Freedom Socialist); Sheila “Samm” Tittle 6.

It appears the national returns are now: Obama 65,587,127; Romney 60,848,326; Johnson 1,273,667; Stein 466,877; Goode 121,823; Barr 67,318; Anderson 42,397; Hoefling 40,601. Check back here later for national totals for the other candidates who were on the ballot in at least one state.

Cathy Stewart, Coordinator of the New York City Independence Party, Responds to New York Daily News Criticism of the Party

Posted on by December 14, 2012
8

On December 12, Cathy Stewart, coordinator of the New York City Independence Party, issued this detailed explanation of how the party goes about finding members for its local committees in New York city. The response is fascinating because it shows how much work is involved in maintaining an active party in New York and other states in which party members in each precinct have the right to elect party officers. Probably no party, other than the Democrats and Republicans, has such an extensive list of elected party officers.

The leading activists of the New York city Independence Party do this hard work because it is the only way they can maintain control over the New York city Independence Party, given that the state Independence Party officers are hostile to the New York city officers. The state officers of the party would dearly love to take control of the city party, but they can’t because the city party activists out-organize them.

Control of the New York city party is important because it determines who can run in the party’s primaries for the three citywide partisan offices, especially Mayor. New York city holds such elections this year.

By End of Day on Friday, December 14, All Presidential Votes Should be Known Except for Write-ins in Certain States

Posted on by December 13, 2012
8

The only states that have not finished tabulating the vote for president, at least for candidates on the ballot, are California and West Virginia, but both expect to release final figures by the end of the day, December 14. West Virginia would have been finished earlier except that Marshall County’s final tally is still incomplete.

However, write-ins remain to be tallied in some states. For example, Massachusetts says it won’t have the write-in tallies for the declared write-in presidential candidates until mid-January.

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Will Hold Hearing on the Right to Vote

Posted on by December 13, 2012
14

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on December 19, Wednesday, at 10 a.m., on “The state of the right to vote after the 2012 election.” The hearing will be in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Probably by now the witness list has already been arranged.

It would be outstanding if one of the witnesses would tell the Senators that in Oklahoma, voters have not been allowed to vote for anyone for president in the general election for over a decade, except for the Democratic and Republican nominees. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news about the hearing.