U.S. District Court Judge in Nevada Says State Law on “None of These Candidates” is Unconstitutional

A U.S. District Court in Nevada has ruled against the state law that provides “None of these candidates” to be printed on ballots for statewide office. See this story.

Presumably Nevada could amend the law and make it constitutional, by providing that if “None of these candidates” wins the most votes, then every candidate whose name had been on the ballot is defeated. Nevada is one of five states that bans all write-in votes. Nevada sometimes says that write-ins are not needed in that state because of the “None” alternative.

Judge Robert C. Jones has not yet put out anything in writing, but said he expects to do that very soon. The case is Townley v State of Nevada, 3:12-cv-310.


Comments

U.S. District Court Judge in Nevada Says State Law on “None of These Candidates” is Unconstitutional — 8 Comments

  1. If this stands I would hope that the thousands that vote for NOTA will just vote for a 3rd party candidate instead.

  2. Pingback: Surprising Ruling from US District Court on “None of the Above” Option in Nevada | Election Law Blog

  3. I imagine there will be some anti-obama leftists that will now vote for Johnson instead of nota, but some may just undervote instead i imagine.

  4. As long as the ballot informs the voter that “none of these candidates” cannot win, how is it unconstitutional? I believe that without this statement on the ballot, the law should be thrown out. I am assuming that somewhere on the ballot, the voter indeed is (was) informed that NOTC cannot win?

  5. If “None of the these candidates” is a vote, then it must be accorded the same power and respect that any other vote receives. It has to count.

  6. Write -in votes could be considered none on these candidates yet most write-ins don’t count.

  7. No state that permits write-in votes says they don’t ever count. It is true that Oregon, Washington, and the District of Columbia won’t count write-in votes if the vote-counting computer thinks no write-in candidate could possibly have won, so #7 does make a good point. That is one reason why this recent Nevada decision is helpful. If the Nevada judge is right, and if he is not reversed, he will have made a precedent that suggests all write-ins for declared write-in candidates must be counted.

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