Write-in totals are not completely counted, nor do we know who they went to yet. But David Leip’s US Election Atlas has at least 78,346 write-ins being counted thus far. This is the largest official write-in total ever. It can be reasonably expected that Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney, and Chuck Baldwin will recieve the lion’s share. This total means that write-ins placed 7th in Presidential votes, ahead of Alan Keyes, and that there were half as many write-ins for President as their were votes for Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party presidential candidate.
UPDATE: Richard Winger has corrected me on this. 78,346 is not any sort of write-in record, but it is expected that this years write-ins WILL break the record national total. Thanks Richard.
18 responses so far ↓
1 Trent Hill // Nov 17, 2008 at 12:34 pm
To be clear, the reason I didnt list Barr is because he only missed 5-6 states and wasnt a write-in candidate in most of them. Baldwin and McKinney were write-ins in many more states.
2 Libertarian Joseph // Nov 17, 2008 at 12:36 pm
So? Means nothing. No CP elections won. This is just an internal victory among hardcore theocrats.
3 Trent Hill // Nov 17, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Libertarian Joseph,
Im just reporting the news dude. Take a chill-pill.
But, if we are analyzing the results–it definetly isnt just an “internal victory”, that would be the Convention victory over Alan Keyes. This is an external victory in that Chuck Baldwin was on 4 less ballots (including populous states like Texas, California, and Pennsylvania, which awarded a combined 48,226 votes to Baldwin). This represents serious growth for the CP’s presidential totals.
4 Trent Hill // Nov 17, 2008 at 12:48 pm
“(including populous states like Texas, California, and Pennsylvania, which awarded a combined 48,226 votes to Baldwin)”
Should say “48,226 votes to Phillips in 1996″.
So if you take Baldwin’s results (186k) plus the Phillips results from those three states that Phillips made that Baldwin didnt (48k), then you have a vote total of roughly 234k.
5 Libertarian Joseph // Nov 17, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Still behind the LP. And the LP was in “civil war” mode this year to boot.
6 kalipay // Nov 17, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Oh shut up. He didn’t say the CP did better.
Nice numbers, Trent. Thanks for the info.
7 richardwinger // Nov 17, 2008 at 1:09 pm
It is not true that 78,346 is some sort of record for a number of write-ins in a presidential election all across the nation. On the other hand, 2008 probably will set a record for a number of write-ins cast for president nationwide; the true number will be far higher than 78,346 when all of them are counted.
In 1976, Eugene McCarthy was officially credited with 78,207 write-ins, and Roger MacBride with 2,225 write-ins, and that doesn’t count all the write-ins for other minor party candidates that year, plus write-ins for people who weren’t candidates.
8 paulie cannoli // Nov 17, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Richard,
While we have you here, I’ve been accused of reposting too many of your articles from the Ballot Access News blog here. If you feel that to be the case, please don’t hesitate to let me know.
9 Trent Hill // Nov 17, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Richard,
I’ll do my best to correct the article.
10 rdupuy // Nov 17, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Wikipedia is usually a great resource for historical information. From Wikipedia: “In 1920, Eugene V. Debs, a staunch socialist who had been convicted by the Espionage Act of 1917 for an anti-war speech that he made in Columbus, Ohio, ran a write-in campaign from his federal prison cell in Atlanta. Debs received almost a million popular votes out of approximately 26 million cast, the most votes a Socialist Party candidate has received in U.S. history. “
11 richardwinger // Nov 17, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Somebody needs to fix that Wiki article on Eugene Debs. He was on the ballot in all states in 1920 except Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, and Vermont. In North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia his name was printed on private ballots, which were legal in all 3 states at the time.
12 richardwinger // Nov 17, 2008 at 2:48 pm
oops, my comment above should also include New Mexico, Montana and South Dakota as states where Debs wasn’t on in 1920.
13 rdupuy // Nov 17, 2008 at 2:51 pm
That somebody will be me.
I edited the Wiki article by amending it to say: “However, he was on the ballot in all states in 1920 except Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, and Vermont. In North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia his name was printed on private ballots, which were legal in all 3 states at the time. ”
I’m not saying this article is pleasant to read, but at least the factual errors are corrected.
If anyone wants to edit it further:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write-in_candidate#President
14 rdupuy // Nov 17, 2008 at 2:52 pm
ok I will edit it further to include: New Mexico, Montana and South Dakota
15 rdupuy // Nov 17, 2008 at 3:18 pm
http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/index.html
this is interesting. Sometimes they have a ‘write-in’ total. Sometimes they include it with ‘others’ and ’scattering’
One of them even had a total for ‘blank’ wow, that number was huge, would put most 3rd parties to shame.
But, from what I can tell 10,000 to 30,000 seems like the range for most elections as far was write-in for presidential candidates is concerned.
16 rdupuy // Nov 17, 2008 at 3:44 pm
One last thing, the above definition, from the article, is not about pure ‘write-in’ candidates, as much as it is about ‘write-in’ vote totals. So for example, even though Chuck Baldiwn did appear on the ballot in most states…for the purpose of this study split out his write-in votes, from his other votes.
Doing that, I counted just shy of 70,000 write-in votes for candidates, whether they were only write-in candidates, or on the ballot in other states, for president in 2004. That was from the above link, and going state by state, so as the ’scattering’ and ‘blank’ totals didn’t get mixed in with write-in totals.
again I was just looking at presidential stuff, ok, I wasted a lot of time on this…lol, time to move on
17 paulie cannoli // Nov 17, 2008 at 4:23 pm
http://reason.com/blog/show/130108.html
So Let It Be Written In, So Let It Be Done
David Weigel | November 17, 2008, 9:49am
Last week, I counted up the vote totals for the third parties in this presidential election. Nothing much has changed in a week, although extra ballots have edged Ralph Nader past his 1996 performance and pushed Chuck Baldwin to the best Constitution Party showing ever. The biggest change, historically speaking, is the total of write-in votes. As of today we know that, in the states that allow write-in votes to be counted, 78,346 people wrote in names at the top of their ballots, the biggest official number in American history.
Does that mean there was a nationwide groundswell of support for Ron Paul? Sort of. We know what happened in New Hampshire, the state that’s crunched the write-in numbers the fastest.
Hillary Clinton, the Democrat who finished first in New Hampshire’s presidential primary last year, also took first among all the write-in candidates in last week’s general election. She garnered 1,124 write-in votes. Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, also had his supporters, claiming 13 write-in votes from around the state.
Libertarians also made a strong showing in write-in ballots. Libertarian icon and Texas Republican Rep. Paul snagged 1,092 write-in votes. Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party nominee, snagged 226 votes.
All year I argued that the Ron Paul rEVOLution had more dead-enders than the Hillary Clinton electorate. But it turns out that, in the one state where we have data, their numbers were pretty comparable.
UPDATE: A caveat about Ralph Nader: His better vote totals are largely a function of his making it on more state ballots than he did in 2004 and 1996. In swing states where he’s always been on the ballot (and where he focused his attention), his numbers are cratering. Nader won 28,087 votes in Florida this year, down from 32,971 in 2004 and (famously) 97,488 in 2000. In Colorado, Nader won 12,542 votes, down marginally from 12,718 in 2004, way down from 91,434 in 2000, and down even from the 25,070 votes he won in his 1996 non-campaign (when he allowed his name to be placed on ballots but refused to stump on the trail). California is Nader’s burial ground: he won 237,016 votes there in 1996, 418,707 votes in 2000, and missed the ballot in 2004. But this year he got back on and won only 95,609 votes, even though liberal voters had no doubts about Obama winning the state.
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Nader would have been better off skipping this race, as far as it concerns his reputation. (Beyond the paltry vote totals, all that’ll make his obituary is him accusing Obama of “acting white” and being an “Uncle Tom.”) That’s also true for McKinney, but probably not true for Barr, Baldwin, and Paul.
18 richardwinger // Nov 17, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I hugely disagree about Nader. He was brilliant to run in 2008. Because the Democrats didn’t challenge his ballot status in a single state in 2008 (whereas they had spent millions of dollars in 2004 to get him off many state ballots), his 2008 run has implicitly improved the Democratic Party’s attitude toward free elections and the ability of people to vote for whomever they wish. OK, the Democratic Party didn’t say, “We made a mistake in 2004 and apologize”, but actions speak louder than words. The Democratic Party’s action in 2008 are as different from their actions in 2004 as night and day. Nader’s 2008 run, one can say, caused the Democrats to re-think what it had done in 2004. We are ALL better off as a result. It will always be imprinted on the Democratic Party’s memory that when they attacked the right to vote, they lost; and when they were good (except for the Maine US Senate race) they won.
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