Source: Ballot Access News

California State Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) will not attempt to advance SCA 12 and SB 712 this year. This is the proposed constitutional amendment and bill to make it more difficult for write-in candidates in a partisan primary to advance to the general election. Current law says whoever comes in second in the June primary for Congress and state office advances to the November ballot. The bill would have said if Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

Alton, Illinois, held city elections on April 9, 2013, and only one name appeared on the ballot for Mayor. However, a candidate who had tried and failed to get on the ballot won the election on write-in votes. See this story. Alton has a population of 27,865. Thanks to Ken Bush for the link.

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Source: Ballot Access News

At the November 2012 election, four populous counties in Pennsylvania did not canvass any write-in votes, even though state law requires that all valid votes must be tallied. The four counties are Chester, Dauphin, Lackawanna, and Lancaster. Each of them has more than 200,000 residents, and Chester and Lancaster each have approximately 500,000 residents. Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

An earlier post today is not completely accurate, but instead of my amending that post (on Pennsylvania presidential write-ins from November 2012) it seems more useful to write a new one. It turns out that the Pennsylvania state Elections Department itself tallied up the write-ins for two particular presidential candidates. The state says Virgil Goode got 383 write-ins and Tom Hoefling got 28. Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

At the November 2012 election, Constitution Party presidential candidate Virgil Goode received 419 write-ins for President in Pennsylvania. This information is from the official county election returns that were submitted to the Secretary of State. Because state employees did not tabulate them, two volunteers from the Constitution Party themselves examined the returns and tallied the state total. The volunteers Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

The Pennsylvania Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties have all decided to appeal the March 7 decision of a U.S. District Court that they don’t have standing to sue over the Pennsylvania challenge system, which leaves any statewide independent candidate, or any statewide petitioning party, in jeopardy of over $100,000 if they submit a petition that has fewer valid signatures than are required. Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

On March 18, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Libertarian Party v District of Columbia Board of Elections, 12-836. The party had complained in 2008 that even though its presidential nominee, Bob Barr, held completed the paperwork to become a declared write-in presidential candidate in D.C. (he was the only presidential candidate who did so), the Board of Elections refused to count his write-ins. Both the U.S. District Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

On March 18, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Arizona v Inter Tribal Council, 12-71. See this analysis of the case, which concerns the 1993 federal “motor voter” law on voter registration. Congress in 1993 passed a law that established a federal voter registration form. Arizona does not wish to accept the federal form unless the individuals who use it provide extra information that the federal form Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

California State Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) has introduced SB 712. Like AB 141, it would provide that write-in candidates in June primaries, for Congress or partisan state office, could not appear on the November ballot, even if they placed second in the primary, unless they get a substantial number of write-in votes.

In 2012, there were eight offices for which only one person filed to appear on the Read more »

Source: Ballot Access News

Pennsylvania is the most populous state that does not have a law that says write-in candidates must file a write-in declaration of candidacy, if they want their write-ins tallied. Instead, all Pennsylvania write-ins are valid, and the law requires that they be tallied. But, even though most counties tally them, the state this year will not make any statewide tallies. By contrast, in November 2008, the state tallied the Read more »