Pennsylvania has 67 counties. In Pennsylvania, all write-ins are legal (there is no procedure for write-in candidates to file in advance) and under the law, all should be tallied. However, once more, 17 counties have failed to include any write-ins from last month’s election, including the populous counties Cumberland, Lehigh, Luzerne, Montgomery, and Philadelphia.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Votes don’t matter do they?
Somebody should file a writ of Mandamus in court to force those counties to fulfill their legal obligation to tally and report those write-in votes.
Yeah, somebody like any citizen of those counties.
Sorry, I’m not 18 yet.
ALL WRITE IN VOTES SHOULD BE COUNTED ,WE ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS. SHAME ON THE SOB THAT FAILED TO TALLY WRITE IN VOTES.
I sincerely doubt that reporting the write-ins would make any difference to any outcome of any race. However, if non-citizens of PA want to pay overtime for this exercise, so be it.
Poll workers are not paid very well compared to the prevailing wages in those high-cost areas (try renting ANYTHING in Philly!) so I sympathize with the workers and would hope they get paid extra for this.
Why aren’t poll workers better paid? Is it because elections have become merely an incidental expense of government?
If all the votes are not going to be counted, then why not really save money on ballot counters and just elect by random sample? One person randomly sampled, one vote. Or, why not just spin the “Wheel of Fortune”?
Isn’t supposed to be about the integrity of a process more than the outcomes? NAH! NAH! It’s more and more about ritual – until it’s not – like the Minnesota Senate election. Then the search for an outcome reveals the flaws of the process.
If the 2000 election was a wake up call to reform the election process, then most Americans are still over-sleeping. And what did the political election “professionals” do? They tried to make the whole process more opaque with insecure gizmos.
Elections are now no more reliable than public opinion polls and just as easy to rig. Oh, maybe that’s the official agenda. Why not just put up cardboard voters at the polling stations and fugetaboutit?
jesus, how lazy are these people?
Could someone provide a list of contact information for the person in each county that is ultimately responsible for the vote count. So that we may call, write, fax or email them to request that they not only do their job but obey the law also.
Pennsylvania activists may want to do what we are doing in West Virginia: Over seventy people have filed INDIVIDUAL election complaints (see the WVSOS official complaint form here:
http://www.wvsos.com/forms/elections/election%20complaint%20form.pdf ) with the Secretary of State reporting notarized affidavits of specific instances of election irregularities regarding write-ins in over half of our counties.
The SOS is now replying to our complaints on an individual basis with individual case numbers requesting additional evidence. We’re stirring them up. WV Election code 3-1-50(5) then gives us the opportunity to request a PUBLIC HEARING.
Suggest you Keystone Staters get copies of your state’s most recent election laws and study them well. Be like Buford Pusser and learn the law better than the corrupt judge so as to relocate his chambers to the mens room. HA!!
I believe a lawsuit will soon be filed, to complaint about this problem and several other problems: (1) Pennsylvania’s unique behavior in requiring candidates eliminated from the ballot to pay vast sums for the work of having checked their signatures; (2) Pennsylvania’s law that says parties must continue to petition for their nominees until those parties have voter registration of 15% of the state voter registration list; (3) Pennsylvania petitions that force minor parties and independent candidates to say that the signers of these petitions are “nominating” their candidates, when the state itself admits that the signers of the petition are not nominating the candidates; the minor parties already did that in conventions.
These people are either elected to be poll workers or they volunteer. They know what they’re signing up for.
I have no sympathy for them. I’ve tried being a poll worker (in Pennsylvania & Alabama), and keep being told “we don’t need you” then read about poll workers complaining about not being paid well enough for what they’re supposed to do.
Darryl,
I’m a poll worker in PA. The write In’s ARE counted at the precinct level. The problem isn’t the poll workers, it’s the county election officials who won’t do their job.
Question:
When it says 17 counties didn’t count the write ins are we talking about a situation where they don’t count who got how many votes or are they saying no write ins were cast at all. For instance in Erie county the official election results (click my name to see the PDF file of the results)show 580 write ins for President but not who the write ins are for.
Citizen1,
The person to contact in Erie county is
Sharon A. Drayer, Election Supervisor
sdrayer@eriecountygov.org
Telephone: (814) 451-6275
Fax: (814) 451-7007
TDD: (814) 451-7066
Address:
Erie County Court House
140 West Sixth Street
Room 105
Erie, PA 16501
Brandon, that would mean that the County Election Clerk isn’t doing his/her job and should be fired.