Has a write in Candidate Ever Won a Major Election?
For example Governor, U.S. Senator, House of Representatives, President.
Over the years I’ve heard of publicity stunts where celebrities or other popular figures staged a write-in campaign. AFAIK they never drew substantial votes. These weren’t serious attempts to win an election. Heck, IIRC Snoopy had a write in campaign one time. Sadly he didn’t win.
The Alaska Senate race with Lisa Murkowski (a current Senator) is obviously much different.
What is the history of write in Candidates? Has anyone ever won a major Election? Or even come very close to winning?
Very interesting. Thurmond won a write in vote 1954. But then they held a special election in 1956. That he won also. Apparently he ran unopposed.
Are write in candidates required to register? There’s a state deadline for the party candidates to register for an election. Someone couldn’t launch a write in campaign weeks before an election? Could they?
In 1982 Ron Packard (California), took the seat vacated by Clair Burgener. Ron lost to Johnny Crean ® in the primary but beat him in the general election as a write in candidate. Johnny falsely claimed things that backfired on him like having the support of Ronald Reagan.
These aren’t major elections, but some of our local elections had winning writein candidates. Which makes for a problem at the courthouse when they tally the results and post them on the Internet. The software has no provision for writeins and can’t report the results – it just lumps all writeins together and doesn’t give names. Obviously the software programmers didn’t think it would ever matter, but they were wrong.
The incumbent Senator had died, and the South Carolina Democratic Party chose to nominate a replacement by itself instead of calling a special primary. This was in an era when SC was a one-party state; the Republican Party seldom even fielded candidates.
Thurmond protested the Party decision, ran as a write-in in the general election, and promised that he would resign in time to run an ordinary campaign two years later–that is, a campaign in which he would run in the Democratic primary.
Laws vary by time and place. In Illinois, write-ins must register I believe 30 days before the election or the state won’t bother to count their votes.
Not a major election, but this past Election Day a little town here in South Carolina had nobody run for mayor. They ran another election and still nobody ran - a write-in won.
Donna Frye “won” the election for mayor in San Diego in 2004, but the stupid voters either spelled her name wrong or didn’t check the “write in” box on the ballot. She ended up losing to Dick Murphy, who resigned shortly thereafter to avoid the heat of SEC and FBI investigations regarding San Diego’s financial woes.
A lots changed since Strom won 50 odd years ago. There probably will be an extended legal battle. Similar to the one that eventually seated Al Franken.
Write in votes are the ultimate peoples vote. Something done outside the rigid party system. I’m glad our system allows it.
The “purpose” of write-ins, that I would infer from Illinois law, is to allow candidates to run without meeting the burdensome requirement of filing nominating petitions well in advance of the election. The purpose is not to allow voters to draft people who don’t want to run at all.
While looking up Illinois law, I noticed something odd:
In Illinois, Lisa Murkowski wouldn’t be a legal candidate!
That brings up a good point. Lisa Murkowski isn’t easy to spell. I wonder if they’d really reject a vote for dropping or transposing a single letter? Heck, even penmanship could be an issue. Verifying write in votes could be difficult, especially if they are challenged.
It depends on the state. Many require the person counting the ballot to make a good faith effort to determine who they were voting for. Alaska is one of those, though I think there was a list of misspellings that they were allowed to accept for Murkowski.
Abandonded by her own party, in 2010 Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski Wednesday became the first Senator in more than 50 years to win an election
with a write-in campaign as she established an unassailable lead over conservative Tea Party movement favorite Joe Miller.
Befor that Ohio Congressman Charlie Wilson ran a successful write-in campaign in 2006 and
Then there was this dude Strom Thurmond won his write-in bid in 1954 and ended up with the longest Senate career in History.
Must be a state difference. In Wisconsin, any name written on the ballot counts. I know of several local elections where write-ins won. In one case, the winner of the town chairman spot began campaigning on the Sunday before the Tuesday election.
In my state the write-in candidate has to file first in order to get his/her votes counted. Any other write-in names are not reported at all. This is a relatively new law, may 20 years old or so. Several other states seem to have done this as well.
So, it can be done, but no one doing a last minute campaign, e.g., against a melted down candidate, has a chance.
That he won also. Apparently he ran unopposed.