I got asked a hypothetical question today that I couldn’t answer. I know, right? (It was from my wife, of course.)
Technically, voters do not vote for a person for President; they vote for a slate of electors. Normally, political parties select a group of loyal party members to be electors.
What if sufficient numbers of voters all decided to write in a name, someone who did not have a preselected slate of electors? Such an outcome has never been even the vaguest possibility in American history, so I’ve never heard even a discussion of how that would be handled.
I do know that some states don’t allow write-in votes and that some require presidential candidates to pre-file a slate. Assume that enough voters in states with enough electoral votes write in the same name with the same spelling and all the other technical details that ensures that the person, who is fully qualified, would win the Presidency.
I think that is the problem right there. The vote is not for a person but for that person’s slate of electors. If no such slate exists then nothing happens.
Write-ins are tricky. If I vote for John Smith there are probably more than one in the state so who did I vote for? I do not know there is enough room to provide the detail you need say it is one specific John Smith.
Of course, states differ on this. Some do not allow them at all, some only allow a write-in for someone who filed a declaration with the state they intended to run (now they know who “that” John Smith is) and there are other variations like allowing them but not counting them unless the listed candidate dies or is out of the race. Too many for me to go through.
I started with the first state that has very broad allowance for write-in votes, and it also just happens to be the first state in the nation alphabetically; Alabama. Here is a link to the relevant state law on write-in votes:
It doesn’t state how electors are chosen by a write-in candidate, it only says what an elector can do if they object to the counting of write-in votes. I assume this would come from the electors who didn’t get enough votes in the election.
The only other official information I can find is here:
Nothing there about how electors are determined for a write-in candidate who receives the most votes in an election.
The speculation I’ve read, in general, is that once the Secretary of State determines that a write-in candidate has received the majority of votes, they’d be asked to pick a slate of electors to represent them. In states like Alabama, where there is no requirement for a write-in candidate to file or otherwise register either before or after the election, I suppose they just send whoever they want as long as they aren’t specifically disallowed by the US Constitution (such as members of the US Congress or the Cabinet).
Of course, those electors chosen can always vote for someone other than that write-in candidate.
I think another question is, what happens if someone is chosen and declines? I would think that they’d need to follow the law and make the refusal official:
And it wouldn’t have to be the same name (for the states that allow faithless electors). If there are enough write-ins to close the gap between the top two candidates, those electors could chose the second place candidate over the first. It’s a really interesting question.
It’s also interesting that states created this issue by adopting the short ballot in which they redefined the write-in to refer to the candidate and not the elector.
Also that was a good answer @Atamasama; thanks for the links.
I had an interesting thought. Let’s say you go on a long vacation out of the country because you are sick of the election, and go somewhere distant, like a tropical island, one very remote and without technology or much of a connection to the outside world. A place where you can forget that there is an election going on and just escape it all.
You come back months later and learn that you were elected as a write-in candidate, and furthermore you missed the opportunity to decline and are now elected. (You could of course resign voluntarily at any point, but until that happens you are the President-elect or whatever.)
Extremely far-fetched, but sounds like the basis for a light-hearted political comedy!
(Also reminds me of an old Mad TV sketch where David Herman plays a guy who wakes up from a drunken blackout and learns that while binge drinking, he ran for office, got elected, and implemented reforms that led the nation into a golden age. The Secret Service agent who is there when he wakes up and tells him all of this insists that he get drunk again to get back to work.)
Looking at the wording in that link, they’d have to be sworn in as President first. A president-elect is just another citizen. Albeit one with Secret Service protection.
There’s also no provision in the Constitution for a President to take office without a Vice President. Must the electoral college choose one? Would that have to be the one with the most electoral votes or do they then have free reign? If they refuse to I assume it gets thrown to the House. Or given these weird circumstances and the write in gets sworn in without a VP, but names one after, a VP would need a majority vote in both houses to be confirmed.
The 25th Amendment says the President shall name a Vice President is the office is vacant, but gives no timeline, nor any mention of what happens if none is named.
Once you drop into the layer of things that make no sense and would never happen but are physically and probably legally possible, a delicious olio of unanswerable questions follow.
Here in Oregon, you can write in anyone’s name for any office. There’s no requirement to file a declaration or anything. Even so, I really doubt that there’s any provision in state law or regulations for electors for a write-in candidate. Why? Because it’s extremely unlikely that one would win.
Now if someone were to mount a serious write-in campaign where it becomes a possibility of them winning, then the elections officials may make up some rule about it. Until then, it’ll be a moot issue.
According to @Atamasama 's link, Oregon does require the write-in candidate to register electors, but not until after the election.
Most states require write-in candidates to register electors before the election. This prevents any issue at the expense of limiting write-in candidates.
I read, but did not verify, that this change was added as states moved to the short ballot (listing candidate names instead of elector names).
A graduate of the program in the university where I teach ran a write-in campaign for President in 2016 (I believe it was). He went around offices looking to sign people up to be his official electors. I declined, but I guess here in CT, you need to submit a slate of electors to be a write in candidate. Not that anyone could stop you from writing in the name of someone who doesn’t have one, but I guess they’d just treat it as a blank ballot.
