I guess you have to be registered as a write-in candidate to receive counted write-in votes. Kind of defeats the purpose of write-ins if you ask me. I still think that it would be good if they listed the number of write-in votes in each case so that the public could get an idea the full amount of people that chose to write-in someone else, regardless of who it was. Of course if they are registered write-ins (as they would later see as a means to "qualify" them ) later on they could break it down to how many votes each "legitimate" write-in source got and the rest of the "non-legitimate" write-in votes showing up as generic "Other Write-in votes:". I think that would give the public a more accurate picture of the support for a given candidate than we have now with these races. Perhaps in some races where some candidates are shown with a 50%+ majority of votes in fact they really might be a plurality instead of a majority if the write-ins were added to the mix, which would eliminate that often used "mandate" mantra that some candidates have. I guess the same could be said for showing unchecked circle counts too. Oh well...
- Mike
From
[email protected] Wed Jun 07 22:22:57 2006
Subject: RE: How come write-in vote totals aren't shown in the vote totals here.
Were they counted?
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 15:22:53 -0700
From: "CSG, ROVMAIL" <
[email protected]>
To: ( me )
Hi ( me ),
To be a qualified write-in candidate a person had to file papers with our office between April 10 and May 23. In San Diego County there were only 3 qualified write-in candidates, Paul Martens, an Independent in the Special Run-off election for the 50th Congressional District, Barbara H. Mead, a Democrat for the 38th Sate Senate and Judith E. Jones, a Democrat for the 73rd Assembly District. If you wrote in any other names they were not counted. The write-in vote counts will be part of the official certified results. By law we have until July 4 to certify the election, but we hope to be done by June 30. Let me know if I can help you with anything else.
Sincerely,
Barbara Walther
Registrar of Voters
858-694-3405
-----Original Message-----
From: (me)
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 11:48 AM
To: CSG, ROVMAIL
Subject: How come write-in vote totals aren't shown in the vote totals
here. Were they counted?
I see many unopposed candidates with "100% of the vote" and raw vote totals for them. But where do those who put write-in votes in those races fall in those totals. Are they counted in that 100% incorrectly or are they just "left off"? I think the public is owed a line that says something like
"Write-ins <total write-in votes> <percentage of write-ins>"
as a line in each of the races. Not doing so makes many like myself who voted write-in votes wonder if all of our votes were thrown out because we had write-ins on our ballot.
Please explain the policy if you would and how they are factored in.
Thanks,
(me)