On October 22, the Pennsylvania state elections department ruled that people can cast write-in votes for president without having to write in a complete slate of 21 candidates for presidential elector (in a 2 x 1 1/2 inch space). The Nader campaign had requested the ruling, since Nader is not on the ballot in that state.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
It’s worth pointing out that write-in votes are only counted in Pennsylvania if there are enough of them to affect the outcome of the race. Theoretically, if there are more write-in votes for elector slates than the difference between Kerry and Bush, those votes should be counted because they might include the names of some Kerry and/or Bush electors. Votes for Nader, on the other hand, probably won’t be counted. They did it in 1996 as a courtesy to the Green Party but said they would not do it again in the future.
I read the paragraph explaining that Write-in Votes for Nader would not be counted. I asked the Pennsylvania Election comittee and they explained the write-in votes would be counted manually…