Alabama Presidential Write-ins

Alabama is a state that has write-in space on the November ballot for president, and which has no requirement that write-in presidential candidates who want their write-ins must file a declaration of write-in candidacy. However, traditionally, the Alabama Secretary of State has never included any write-ins in her official canvass of votes. But in 2006, for the first time, she included photocopies of all the write-ins certified to her office, for all office. Now, for the 2008 official canvass, she has again posted the copies of write-in tallies on her webpage.

Unfortunately, only 20 counties bothered to send her any data about write-ins. Alabama has 67 counties; the 20 counties that submitted write-in information comprise approximately half the population of the state.

In the 20 counties that reported write-ins, Ron Paul and Hillary Clinton were the clear winners. There seem to be 279 write-ins for Hillary Clinton for president, and 273 write-ins for Ron Paul for president.

Among presidential candidates who were actually running (yet who weren’t on the Alabama ballot), the write-ins are: Alan Keyes 14, Cynthia McKinney 6, Brian Moore 4, Ted Weill 1 (Ralph Nader, Bob Barr, and Chuck Baldwin were on the ballot).

If you live in Alabama, in one of the 47 counties that broke the law and did not tally any write-ins, you should consider making a complaint. Some years ago the Attorney General issued an opinion, saying that counties must tally all write-ins. The only 20 counties that submitted write-ins to the Secretary of State are Baldwin, Barbour, Calhoun, Cherokee, Clarke, Covington, Elmore, Etowah, Henry, Jefferson, Lawrence, Limestone, Marengo, Marion, Mobile, Montgomery, Russell, St. Clair, Walker, Washington.

The most populous counties that did NOT report their write-ins are Madison (which has Huntsville), Lee, Morgan, Shelby, and Tuscaloosa.


Comments

Alabama Presidential Write-ins — 9 Comments

  1. My precint (Jefferson County 5212) isn’t accounted for. And of the counties that did tabulate write-ins, not all were accounted for.
    In the Senate race, only 216 of 2417 write-ins were accounted for.

    PS
    Paulie

    Tuscaloosa
    W Hardy McCollum PO Box 20067
    Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35402 (205) 349-3870

  2. Perhaps more states need to allow for official write-ins, whose results will be totaled and released.

    Vermont, DC, Alabama.. i’m looking in your direction.

  3. DC has a bad policy of not releasing the write-in totals for declared write-in presidential candidates. Oliver Hall wrote a letter to the DC Board of Elections and mentioned 3 precedents, including one (Kamins v DC from 1974) that specifically said write-ins for declared presidential candidates in November must be counted. The DC Board replied without even looking at the Kamins case. I hope Oliver Hall will write another letter to them tomorrow.

  4. Chuck Baldwin, lives just across the border in Florida from “Baldwin County, Alabama”.

    I figured that this would be a top county for Chuck Baldwin in the national scheme of things.

    However, Chuck Baldwin received an average 0.21% and 170 votes in Baldwin County.

    Nothing worse than Baldwin disloyalty!

  5. Moore should be attributed five write-in votes among the reported Alabama totals, rather than four. In addition to the two presidential write-in votes cast for “Brian Moore” in Mobile County, there is also a presidential write-in vote, on the same page from Mobile County, that’s cast for “Moose Alexander.” Being only one letter off, this is clearly a case of an election worker misreading the handwriting of a vote cast for “Moore Alexander” (Stewart Alexander was Moore’s vice presidential running mate).

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