Elections?..."Writing in" . . . a candidate???...How does one do this?

Question

Lou Dobbs has published his belief - that - the next elected leader of the USA will be an 'independent' . . . neither a Democrat or Republican . . . but one who has not yet declared candidacy.

How does one write in their person of choice, on a ballot?

I vote for Lou Dobbs . . .!!!

Answer 1

Some of the new computer screens allow for you to write in a candidate. Otherwise you will need to vote on a paper ballot so you can write your candidate's name in the box. Lou Dobbs has a lot of good ideas!

Answer 2

Others have already explained how a "write-in" candidate can be chosen on a ballot.

In my state (Minnesota), the electronic voter-assist devices allow the user to chose a write-in candidate and then enter the name, using a displayed keyboard on the touch screen, or other selection methods for vision-impaired users that also permit spelling out a name. These devices would then print the name on the paper ballot. (Instead of electronically recording, and potentially manipulating, the vote, the touch-screen devices we use actually mark a paper ballot, which is counted along with the hand-marked ones.)

Optically-scanned ballot tabulations report the number of ballots with write-in votes for each race. These ballots are separated from the others, and all the write-in votes are counted and included in the final report. Usually, there are few enough that they do not affect the result of the race.

But an independent or third-party candidate need not be a write-in. They could qualify for inclusion on the ballot, which is much easier. (We had a large-scale write-in campaign, by a dissident portion of a major party, a few years ago, and it was somewhat hampered by the requirement that the names be spelled correctly, which might have been difficult in that particular case, as the candidate's running mate was named "Dyrstad.")

Requirements for getting on the ballot differ state by state. A local fringe candidate claimed to have gotten herself on the North Dakota presidential ballot a few years ago. (I never checked that claim.)

John Anderson ran for President in 1980 and got about 9% of the vote (including mine). He was hampered in several states by odd requirements: Michigan, where I lived at the time, required him to form a "party" organization in order to be placed on the ballot.

One reason for such requirements in presidential races is that you don't vote directly for the candidates for President and Vice President. You vote for electors (that is, your state's members of the Electoral College) who allegedly support those candidates. (There's no penalty for an elector changing his vote, but it usually isn't done if it would make a difference. One Minnesota elector voted for John Edwards rather than John Kerry for President in 2004. A Nixon elector in 1972 voted for the National Libertarian Party candidates--and the party rewarded the elector by running HIM for President in subsequent elections.)

Answer 3

Some elections allow write in candidates. It will vary from state to state and even from one county or city to the next (for local races). As a write in for President, that would be up to the individual state to allow. Remember, Presidential candidates do not have their own Federal Election, they essentially piggy back on state elections. Each state has their own laws directing how their elections will be run. Usually the basics are found in each state's Constitution.

I think Otis has put something into Lou's water cooler if he thinks the next President will be a write-in.