In honor of election day, here’s an election question.
Lets say in a hypothetical election, none of the candidates on the ballot win. Instead, there’s a massive write in vote for, say “John Smith”. Unfortunately, there are multiple people named John Smith in the district. How does the board of elections determine which John Smith won?
If the name written in is not distinct enough to resolve to a single individual, those votes are invalid. Likely with a write in as the winner, the entire vote for that office would be invalidated, but the laws on this will vary from place to place.
Alternately the election commision may opt to have a run off elections among the john smiths.
You have to register as a write-in candidate. All votes for non-registered candidates are counted, as opposed to thrown away, but no legal person gets credit for them. A vote for Mickey Mouse is equivalent to a vote for Arnold Horseshoe, if Arnold hasn’t consented to serve in that office.
In many locations it is true you must register to be a write in candidate, but this is not true everywhere.
That said, there is no case of anyone winning an election via a write-in ballot without actually campaigning to do so.
In the OP, if only one John Smith registered (if required) and campaigned, he’d be declared the winner.
I’m not sure if it’s universally true that you have to register to be a write-in candidate. From what I’ve gathered, registering with the election office is only required if you live somewhere that has campaign contribution and spending laws that distinguishes “declared candidates” versus private citizens. This prevents someone from skirting the spending rules by running an (officially) undeclared write in campaign. Although I would think they’d have to spend an awful lot of money to overcome not being on the ballot.
In Illinois, you have to register as a write-in candidate to convince the State Board of Elections that it’s worthwhile to bother counting your votes. Otherwise, they get ignored.
I happen to have once won an (extremely minor) election as a write-in candidate so I can assure you that you don’t have to register in advance in all states. (I was running for the Republican Party County Committee, which has a male & female elected representitive in every voting district).
What happened in my case is that I happened to notice on the sample ballot that no one was running for that position in my district and cleverly deduced that the write-in candidate with the most votes would win. So I told a few friends to vote for me and won a landslide 12 - 2 victory. (I liked to brag that I had won this landslide with no special interest money and no negative advertising - purely a grassroots campaign.)
The only thing I got out of it was a Certificate from the Election Commission (or whatever it’s called) confirming my victory, and a whole lot of subsequent postcards from the Republican Party attempting in vain to get me to campaign for their candidates.
The interesting thing - and this has a bearing on the OP - is that my brother heard of my plan and voted for his wife for the same position (but again, there is a separate position for females). A whole bunch of other women got one vote and no one got more, but the Election Commissioner decided to award the position to my SIL (much to her annoyance). He sent her certificate to my address, indicating that he thought my SIL was my wife. And I suspect that this is why he decided to award her the position.
Bottom line is that the election people apparently have the authority to use their judgement is deciding who is meant. I would guess their determination could be challenged in court, in which case the judge would then use his judgment.
As far as I know in PA you don’t have to register as a write in. The one time I ran, the county election board told me to fax in a letter declaring my intent which included all possible misspellings of my name and any nicknames that I use. So if my name were Michael Mouse and I know that my friends call me Mickey, I should include Mickey Mouse as one of my possible names.
Ultimately, the precinct judge gets the initial call whether or not to count that vote. If the precinct judge throws out some Mickey Mouse votes, I can go to the county and ask to re-consider if the number of Mickey Mouse votes is enough to possibly change the election result.
In the case the OP presents, it could in theory get tricky. Let’s say John P. Smith is running for Governor from Pittsburgh and John M. Smith is running for Governor from Philly. Both candidates presumably will inform their voters to vote for the appropriate name. But inevitably voters will just write in John Smith or J Smith. Then it goes to the discretion of the election judge at the polls. So the Pittsburgh judges give votes in their wards to their local candidate assuming that a Pittsburgh voter wants Pittsburgh John Smith and the same in Philly. The PA Secretary of State finds that logic sound and upholds the count.
Now lets stretch the scenario where the vote is so close and the votes for “John Smith” hold the balance. Pittsburgh Smith is declared the winner. That’s lawsuit city. Philly John Smith sues and says that a number of the Pittsburgh votes are actually his because he went to college at Duquesne and many of his friends are prepared to sign affidavits stating that they voted for him. Its unlikely that any court will be able to sort it out and will probably leave the decision of the Board of Elections. It will just take two years and about $10 million to fight it out. In the meantime, there won’t be a Lt. Governor so the State Senate President will relish being in charge. Very messy.
The lesson is, if you are running in a serious election and your name is John Smith, then get your ass on the ballot. Failing that, make sure you get some friends elected as precinct judges.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything "
Spencer Mountain, North Carolina recently held an election with no listed candidates: No one on ballot for mayor, council in NC town. They said it wasn’t that unusual, and everyone would be selected by write-ins.