Michigan: Write-in votes in Republican primary could slow counting process | Detroit Free Press

It's going to be a long night -- and day -- on Tuesday and Wednesday for candidates and voters in the 11th Congressional District in suburban Wayne and Oakland counties. The emergence of a vigorous write-in campaign by former state Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, means final results will be delayed until at least Wednesday afternoon. That may also slow vote tallies for issues on ballots in those communities. Local clerks will be able to determine how many votes Kerry Bentivolio, a Milford teacher, reindeer farmer, tea party activist and the only Republican who will appear on the ballot, gets on election night. But the results for Cassis -- and the other two certified write-in candidates, Drexel Morton and former state Sen. Loren Bennett, both of Canton -- will show up only as write-in votes after polls close. It might be possible to call a winner if Bentivolio has a significant majority of votes. But if write-ins are close to or exceed Bentivolio's total, it gets complicated.

New York: Voting machines in the primary between Charlie Rangel and Adriano Espaillat didn’t count hundreds of votes | NY Daily News

More than 500 votes in the controversial Democratic primary contest between Charlie Rangel and Adriano Espaillat were never counted for any of the candidates. A Daily News review of official precinct-by-precint results for the 13th Congressional District shows that electronic vote scanning machines the Board of Elections has used for the past two years failed to record any voter choice on 436 ballots. Those nullified ballots represent 1% of all votes cast in the race — a significant figure, given that Rangel won by only a 2% margin. The Board of Elections discarded another 78 write-in votes as “unattributable” to any candidate, The News’ review found. It defies logic that 514 people went to the polls in this hotly-contested race and voted for no one. The biggest number of both “unrecorded” votes (104) and “unattributable” write-ins (20) came in the 72nd Assembly District in Washington Heights/Inwood, where insurgent candidate Espaillat had the most support.

Florida: Seminole County commission write-in candidate keeps non-Republicans from voting in primary | Orlando Sentinel

Kevin Gross is running for Seminole County Commission, but you won't see his name on a ballot. He doesn't have a campaign website, and it's unlikely he will knock on doors looking for votes. Gross, a registered Republican from Longwood, is a write-in candidate. Yet despite his low profile, he could have a significant influence on the District 3 commission race Aug. 14. Because of a loophole in state law, his candidacy means that only registered Republicans — about 41 percent of the county's 260,000 registered voters — will be able to vote in the race. If not for Gross, all registered voters in Seminole could vote in the Republican primary. Across Florida, Republicans and Democrats alike have used the write-in tactic to keep voters from other parties out of their primaries.

South Carolina: No decison on Vick’s vanishing votes until Friday | TheState.com

A decision on whether to count all votes cast in the Democratic primary for the newly created 7th Congressional district will not be made until Friday when state officials meet to certify results, a S.C. election official said Wednesday.
Gloria Bromell Tinubu, a Georgetown college professor, was declared the outright primary winner with 52.4 percent of the tally -- enough of a margin to best four candidates and avoid a runoff with second-place finisher Preston Brittain, a Myrtle Beach attorney who received 39.4 percent of the vote.
But S.C. Democratic leaders believe that the state should not have excluded about 2,340 votes cast for state Rep. Ted Vick, whose name remained on the ballot despite withdrawing from the race last month after being charged with DUI.

Voting Blogs: U.S. Court of Appeals Says Government Never Needs to Count Write-in Votes | Ballot Access News

On June 8, the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, issued a short, thoughtless opinion in Libertarian Party v District of Columbia Board of Elections. It says that because the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992 said that the U.S. Constitution does not require states to print write-in space on ballots, therefore it follows logically that if governments do allow write-in space, the same government can refuse to count them.

California: Minor parties facing extinction under new voting system | San Jose Mercury News

They've been a colorful part of California's political landscape for decades -- Greens, Libertarians, American Independents and members of the Peace and Freedom Party. But after Tuesday's election, most of them will be all but invisible -- and perhaps on their way to extinction. In past years, minor parties held their own primary elections to choose nominees who would go on to compete with Democratic and Republican nominees in general elections. But that's no longer the case under California's new "top two" primary system, in which all voters choose from among all candidates of all parties -- and only the two candidates who get the most votes advance to November, regardless of party. Because minor party candidates rarely finish in the top two, and it's now harder for their candidates to get on the primary ballot in the first place, the parties will have little or no presence on the general-election ballot. And in politics, invisibility means oblivion. "It could spell the end of the Peace and Freedom Party," said party chairman C.T. Weber, 71, of Sacramento. "It's a shame that democracy is being undermined by this, but that's the reality if we're not able to overturn the law."

New Hampshire: Second Place in New Hampshire Democratic Primary Goes to…Ron Paul?! | Huffington Post

We all know that President Obama won his party's primary in New Hampshire. What you may not know is that Obama only won 79.5% of the vote. Second place in the New Hampshire Democratic primary went to Ron Paul, with 3.7%, Mitt Romney was third with 2.9% of the vote, and Jon Huntsman was fourth with 2.0%. Yes, you heard me right, Ron Paul came in second in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. And in case you are wondering, Barack Obama received 0.1% of the vote in the Republican primary.

Virginia: McDonnell and General Assembly lobbied to allow write-ins on presidential ballots | Washington Post

A coalition of tea party leaders and activists are lobbying the General Assembly and Gov. Bob McDonnell to change election law to allow write-in votes on the March 6 presidential primary ballot. Sen. Frank M. Wagner (R-Virginia Beach) introduced a bill last week that would change existing law to allow for write-ins in both primary and general elections. The groups are asking voters to sign petitions supporting the bill. In order for the bill to be effective March 6, it would require four-fifths of legislators to approve, which is unlikely to happen. Legislative leaders in both chambers say it’s not a priority. Only former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) qualified for the Virginia ballot.

Virginia: State unlikely to change law to allow Gingrich write-in | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Newt Gingrich wants Virginia legislators to change the law in time for him to mount a write-in campaign in Virginia's March 6 presidential primary. But that appears virtually impossible, for practical as well as political reasons.

NBC 4, the network's Washington affiliate, caught up with Gingrich on Christmas Day at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, the nation's largest Roman Catholic Church. Gingrich's wife, Callista, was singing in the choir.

"We're disappointed, but it was our fault," Gingrich, a McLean resident, said of his campaign's failure to qualify for Virginia's primary ballot. "And we hope to launch a write-in campaign. We're getting an amazing number of people who … believe Virginians ought to have the right to choose and shouldn't be restricted to two people." When a reporter noted that state law prohibits write-in votes in Virginia primaries, Gingrich said: "There's time for them to change it. If something's wrong, they ought to fix it."

Ohio: Rep. Marcia Fudge says state-approved voter legislation will unfairly invalidate some ballots | PolitiFact Ohio

A sweeping election reform bill the GOP-controlled Ohio legislature recently passed has stirred widespread opposition. Democrats have even called it the Voter Suppression Bill. In that spirit, opponents have initiated an effort to repeal the law, House Bill 194, through a voter referendum.

U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, a Democrat from Warrensville Heights, sent an email to her supporters on Aug. 22 asking for help collecting the 231,147 valid signatures of registered voters required to put the law on the ballot in November 2012. The signatures must be submitted by Sept. 29 or the law will take effect.

In her email, Fudge laid out several changes the bill makes that she opposes. "HB 194, the Voter Suppression Bill, invalidates a vote where a voter properly marks the ballot in support of a particular candidate, but also writes in the name of that same candidate," Fudge wrote. Invalidating a vote, especially when the voter’s intent is clear, definitely is an issue worth examining. So PolitiFact Ohio decided to check Fudge’s claim as she pushes for the law’s repeal.

California: Top Two Primary Fight Heads to Federal Appeals Court | Business & Election Law

The legal battle surrounding California’s controversial Top Two Primary has reached an influential federal appeals court.

This afternoon, a federal trial court refused to put California’s controversial new election regime on hold.  In response, Plaintiffs Michael Chamness, Daniel Frederick, and Rich Wilson immediately asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the lower court’s decision.

Earlier, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made a key ruling:  it allowed in critical evidence that directly challenges the legality of the Top Two Primary.

Iowa: Butter Cow, Obama, “Parry” & “Paylin” all got Straw Poll votes | Radio Iowa

The State Fair’s most iconic figure and even President Obama were among the write-in votes at this past weekend’s Iowa Republican Party Straw Poll in Ames.

“There were votes for the Butter Cow. It happens in every election, just random votes that didn’t equate with a person,” says Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz, a Republican who oversaw the Straw Poll balloting. ”Most of them were fictitious characters.”

Schultz and his fellow counters used existing state rules for primaries and the General Election to sift through the votes cast in Saturday’s Straw Poll. That means anyone who spelled Texas Governor Rick Perry’s name with an A instead of an E had their vote counted as a vote for Perry.

Alaska: Alaska Legislature passes voter intent write-in bill | Alaska Dispatch

A measure that makes it clear a voter’s intent takes precedence when casting a write-in vote has passed the Legislature and now goes to the governor for signature.

Senate Bill 31, sponsored by Sen. Joe Thomas of Fairbanks, grew out of the 2010 U.S. Senate race. Fairbanks attorney Joe Miller beat incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the August primary so Murkowski launched a write-in campaign and came back to defeat Miller in the November general election.

The Voting News Daily: Alaska Report recommends changes to state election laws, Florida Elections Bill is a Travesty

AK: Report recommends changes to state election laws – Juneau Empire

Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell is recommending dozens of changes to state election law following last year’s disputed write-in election battle for a U.S. Senate seat. None of the changes to election law or regulations would have changed the outcome, Treadwell said, and many conform Alaska election law to existing court rulings that guided the outcome of that election. Some were recommended by a judge who heard Republican senatorial nominee Joe Miller’s challenge to write-in candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s eventual election victory. The report’s most important conclusion is that the election process was handled appropriately despite the lack of laws addressing key aspects of how such an election needed to be handled. Read More

FL: Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho: Elections Bill is a Travesty

The House Republican Leadership has introduced a bill that the Leon County Supervisor of Elections calls a travesty. Proposed House Bill 1355 passed through a subcommittee Friday morning. Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho says proposed House Bill 1355 destroys the election process as it currently exists in Florida and he went to legislators to let them know that he strongly opposes it. Sancho shook his head at the 128-page document before heading inside the House Office Building to let the Governmental Operations Subcommittee know how he feels. But, to no avail. The subcommittee members voted in favor of proposed House Bill 1355. Sancho says he disagrees with a change that would allow the partisan appointee of the governor to control all supervisors of elections and give them orders, or remove them from office. Sancho said, “This is ridiculous. It would be as if an appointed water district commissioner could order an elected legislator around. There’s only one reason for this and that is partisan control over the process. It serves no interest of the citizens.” Sancho says he’s also against the bill because it would make it illegal for voters to continue doing address and name changes at their voting location. Sancho says this bill would only make voting harder for residents–which he says is the last thing voters in Florida need, considering the state’s voting history. He says the changes would force people not to vote or not know if their vote counted after casting their ballot. It has to go through another subcommittee. But, Sancho says he does not believe it will go all the way because he says these changes go against federal law.

Alaska: Alaska Report recommends changes to state election laws | Juneau Empire

Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell is recommending dozens of changes to state election law following last year’s disputed write-in election battle for a U.S. Senate seat. None of the changes to election law or regulations would have changed the outcome, Treadwell said, and many conform Alaska election law to existing court rulings that guided the outcome of that election.

Some were recommended by a judge who heard Republican senatorial nominee Joe Miller’s challenge to write-in candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s eventual election victory. The report’s most important conclusion is that the election process was handled appropriately despite the lack of laws addressing key aspects of how such an election needed to be handled.