New York had 31 electoral votes in this past presidential election. When the feds received the Certificate of Vote, however, it showed that the 31 votes were cast for John **L Kerry, not John F Kerry. (see image here)
In this case (as Kerry lost) it makes no difference. Furthermore, New York is going to correct the document.
However, what would happen if the matter went unnoticed until Congress began tallying the votes? Suppose it made a difference in the election? Could the votes be invalidated? (And please keep this factual. Let’s not get into “Well, of course the Republicans/Democrats would do anything to take power…”)
This is strictly off the top of my head, without any legal or other kind of research.
I don’t think the certificate matters because it’s simply a tally of the ballots cast. So long as the ballots themselves say John F. Kerry, then the error on the certificate is simply a scrivener’s error. However, if the ballots say John L. Kerry, then I don’t think the certificate can be corrected and the final electoral vote should show 31 votes for John L. Kerry. Do we know what the ballots look like? Did they have the names already printed on them or did the electors write in the names?
Once the ballots are cast, that’s it, in my opinion. So, for example, the elector in Minnesota who cast his/her ballot for “John Ewards” for president is stuck, despite his/her likely intention to vote for Kerry for president and Edwards for VP.
If an error in the BALLOTING causes a tie or causes a candidate to receive less than 271 votes, then I think the election goes to Congress, just as it would if an elector didn’t screw up and there was a tie or neither candidate received 271 votes. I think it’s preferable to have a bright line test on this: once you cast your ballot and drop it in the box or whatever it is the electors do, then that should be it. Anything less creates room for votes to be changed and that would be a Very Bad Thing, IMHO.
Being an elector is not a difficult a job so I don’t think there should be room for error correction in the balloting process. And if the ballots were printed with “John L. Kerry” then shame on the New York Secretary of State and shame on all 31 electors who didn’t notice the problem.
Congress has the final say in counting electoral votes. Since the intent of the Democratic electors to vote for their party’s presidential candidate is blindingly obvious, one likes to think that common sense would prevail and no challenges would be raised.
Perhaps one of our lawyer Dopers can help us out–I believe there is a legal principle to the effect that minor clerical errors in documents aren’t binding when the intent of all parties concerned is obvious.
That’s very true. The excuse has never worked for people who refuse to obey summonses because their name was written in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and that’s not how you spell it. Nor has it worked for tax protestors who claim the 16th Amendment was never ratified because the punctuation wasn’t exactly the same in every state’s article of ratification.