It’s probably in the Constitution’s fine print somewhere but it’s hard for idiots (yup, like me) to read. So, with respect to U.S. presidential elections, is there a provision for a “write in” candidate? Or must that person be officially entered into the race by securing a stack or two of citizen endorsements–and if so, how many?
For instance, let’s say Inigo just magically captures the hearts and minds of the US population through some dazzlingly brilliant display of political prowess. He zooms from the depths of the unknowns to right smack in the limelight on October 21st–all are in awe of his abilities, his demeanor, presidential; his policies, fair and enlightened; respect deferred to him by world leaders, coveted. He appears thoroughly qualified to preside, and lacks the tarnish of the current candidates…and he’s 37 years old.
Is there a process for getting this hero into the Oval Office in this election cycle?
As was discussed in the thread on the U.S. election process started by owlstretchingtime, technically, you’re not voting for a presidential candidate. You’re voting for a slate of presidential electors to represent your state in the Electoral College. Generally, these electors are pledged to vote for the candidate for their party in the Electoral College, but there’s not, AFAIK, any legal requirement that they do so.
Thus, the election laws in each state determine what happens with “write-in” candidates. In Georgia, for instance, state law provides that in order for votes for a write-in candidate to be counted, that candidate must register with the state and meet certain criteria (don’t remember offhand what they include). Only write-in votes for candidates thus qualified are counted. So if you write in “Inigo Montoya” here, you may amuse yourself, but your vote is ignored in the totals. I suspect that at least some other states have similar laws.
So in short, even if you got a majority of the voters to write in your name on their ballots, it’s unlikely that you’d collect enough legal votes to be the popular vote winner in most states, and even if you did, the slate of electors for one of the major party candidates would still be elected to the Electoral College (since you presumably have no slate of electors of your own), and they presumably would vote for their guy.
North Carolina has the same obnoxious write-in provision as does Georgia – and for all offices, not merely for (electors for) President/Vice-President.
Which reminds me: the Polycarp/Esprix ticket will need 535 American dopers to serve as our electors, should we carry any state! :dubious: Someone may want to start a registry of interested prospective electors in MPSIMS.
Sorry, but the fact that Esprix has only done the occasional drive-by post in MPSIMS lately makes me question whether he has the gravitas to be only a hearbeat away from the highest office in the land. I won’t comment on whether he has, as the Brits would say, “good bottom.”
If you start now, you should have great name recognition by 2080.
IIRC, parties and candidates printed their own ballots for literal ballot boxes until the practice was supplanted with voting machines c. 1900 (adjust for county). Thus I imagine that states rewrote (or wrote a first time) ballot access laws after the advent of the machines and a standardized ballot system, and counties implement state law with a lot of variation in most states.
These access laws have been getting gradually stiffer, and the two major parties usually raise them after a 3rd party or individual has some success. In Pennsylvania, for example, we quadrupled the signature requiremet for statewide ballot access after George Wallace did so well here in 1968.
