Warning: your write-in vote won’t be counted

Not if you live in certain states, anyway. Ballot access expert Richard Winger* says write-in votes aren’t even counted until as late as January, if they’re counted at all:

Certain areas of the country illegally don’t count them at all. Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and the District of Columbia all refuse to provide a tally for the declared write-in candidates. In the case of the District of Columbia, this is especially egregious, since a D.C. court explicitly ordered such tallies for declared write-in presidential candidates, in 1975…New York city habitually fails to count any write-in votes for the declared write-in presidential candidates. The Board says it is too much work to take down the heavy rolls of paper from the mechanical voting machines and look at them.

So all of you who are planning to write in Ron Paul for President, go ahead and exercise your right to vote for your candidate of choice but expect to be ignored, at least for several months and possibly forever.

If you want to find out your state’s law on write-ins, you’ll find it here.

* Thank you, Richard. I always learn something new from you.

Spoiler Alert!

Now that we know who's in the running, as if we didn't know two months ago, it's time to turn really negative and talk about all those spoilers out there who are dead set on ruining the 2008 election.

Okay, so maybe there aren't that many, and maybe it's highly unlikely that Bob Barr (Libertarian), Cynthia McKinney (presumed Green candidate), Chuck Baldwin (Constitution), Ralph Nader (Independent), Ron Paul (Republican) or any of the other 250-plus candidates for president will get enough votes to earn the right to be named this election's spoiler. But let's say someone does.

In that case, I would like to remind voters across the land 1) who the real spoilers are (hint: they're in office right now!); 2) that anyone who meets the legal requirements has the right to run for office; and 3) that if these people are denied the right to run, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of voters will be left without a candidate to vote for.

I just don't buy the spoiler argument. Like them or not, in recent elections Ross Perot and Ralph Nader gave voters a choice, as will Barr, McKinney, Paul and — can it be? — Nader again this fall. Instead of blaming a lost election on the little guys, the major parties might consider offering better candidates of their own.

If you're an independent or third-party member, what do you think about the whole spoiler argument?

Obama's Appeal to Iowa (and Other) Independents

The proof is finally in: independents prefer Obama over Clinton. We already knew that, didn't we? But Iowa proved it, with those independents participating in the Democratic caucus choosing Obama 2 to 1 over Clinton.

One reason for Obama's appeal to independents is, of course, his transpartisan perspective. He's not just willing to cross major-party lines to get things done; he's also willing to bring third parties and independents into the mix. But there's an even stronger reason for independents' support of Obama: instead of just reaching out to us for our votes, he listens to us and seeks our input. By contrast, Clinton treats us as if we're an annoying but necessary evil. She doesn't understand us at all.

Anyway, our good friend E.J. Dionne Jr., in an op-ed piece ("A Whiff of Revolution from Iowa") in today's Washington Post, offers his always spot-on analysis of the Iowa caucus. For independents or anyone who wants to understand their impact on yesterday's vote, it's a must read.

But let's move on to his take on the upcoming New Hampshire primary, from the same article:

Tuesday's New Hampshire primary will have a much larger turnout, and independents -- roughly 40 percent of the potential electorate -- will play a far greater role than they did in Iowa. Until recently, it appeared that independents, who are on the whole alienated from President Bush and his party, would vote in large numbers in this state's Democratic primary, as they did in the Iowa caucuses. This would benefit Obama...[who in NH]was drawing 46 percent of his support from independents, while Clinton drew 33 percent of her backing from voters who did not declare a party affiliation. By coming into New Hampshire strong, Obama may keep independents on the Democratic side. This could hurt McCain, who leans far more heavily on independents than Romney does.

...Democrats, particularly Obama, are fighting for the middle ground and the independents, while Republicans are largely talking to each other.

The Iowa results, especialling Clinton's third-place showing, Giuliani's barely-there outcome, Huckabee's win, and Ron Paul's strong-for-him placement, may help energize us a bit and help us overcome the election fatigue that started to set in, oh, at least six months ago.

And the Winners Are...

...Democrat Dennis Kucinich, Reublican Ron Paul, and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney (if you just wondered "Who??", you're not alone---she's not well-known outside the Greens). They were the high vote-getters in the online Independent Primary, in which 106,645 votes were cast. (See my previous post for details on the primary.)

What was most interesting to me was that in none of the races was there a close runner-up. Kucinich scooped up 76% of the 80,153 Democratic votes that were cast; John Edwards, the number 2 vote-getter, only received 9%. The results were even more striking in the GOP column. Of the 25,269 votes cast for Republican candidates, Ron Paul captured 93%; Mike Huckabee came in a very distant second with 1.8% of the vote. McKinney captured 80% of the 314 Green Party votes; Jared Ball** (again you ask, "Who??") was the runner-up, also with 1.8% of the vote. Just over 900 voters, by the way, selected "none of the above."

You can see the entire results here.

*Cynthia and **Jared, just so you know: