I don't know, but I doubt it. You should check with your election
commission or whatever they call it in New York. As to whether the votes
are counted, you might also want to ask your election commission about
that too. A few years ago in West Virginia there was an attempt to pass
a law that would allow county clerks to not count write in votes if they
didn't want to. That law did not finally pass, but the state secretary
of state at the time, Ken Hechler, was pushing for it. He was the one
who was also always proclaiming what a proud liberal he was. I argued
with him on the issue both by calling in to a radio talk show he
appeared on and during the discussion period when he addressed the state
NFB convention. He seemed to be stunned that anyone would actually take
a write in vote seriously. He seemed to think that writing in votes was
only done as a joke. As for reporting the write in votes, I have seen
that done in The Militant, but it has been a long time since they did
that. Most of the parties that run their own write in candidates like to
report their own vote totals in their own publications. Sometimes those
totals are hard to come by, though, even for the candidates themselves.
You can pretty much forget about the bourgeois press reporting the
numbers though. Even if the candidate is on the ballot they are very
reluctant to report the vote totals of any candidate who is not a
Democrat or Republican. I do remember one time that they did, though. I
have told this story before here, but let me tell it again. Once the
county prosecutor office became available. It was for an unexpired term
and there were less than two months left to the term. None of the usual
lawyers who would have filed for that office were interested. The filing
deadline came and went and no one filed. So it was inevitable that
whoever won was going to win by write in votes. At that time I had a
friend named Caroline who was a college student at the time and on a
lark she decided to run for the unexpired term of prosecutor. She did
not file. She was only doing it as a lark and she had no expectation at
all that she would win. She simply went around asking people to write in
her name. A couple of days before the election some lawyer announced
that he would run as a write in candidate to be sure that a responsible
person got the job. The day after the election the news media did report
his vote totals. I don't remember the exact number, but it was just
under thirty votes. They did not report Caroline's votes at all, but I
started adding up all the people who promised that they would vote for
her and included myself and her too. The total came to just over twenty
votes. So I estimate that she lost the election by about five votes. If
that lawyer had not filed she would have gotten the surprise of her life
when she was elected as the county prosecutor. By the way, I have
considered the Socialist Workers Party to be my party for a very long
time now. It has actually been decades. However, the party just keeps
taking turns that make me very uncomfortable and the latest one of those
turns was switching to a support of Zionism and the two state solution.
So I hate to say it, but Jeff Mackler is actually looking to me like a
better choice than Alyson Kennedy. In 2016 I thought the same thing, but
when it came to voting I couldn't remember how to spell the name of his
running mate and ended up voting for Alyson Kennedy. I used to
personally know her, by the way. This time Jeff Mackler is running with
Heather Bradford. I will not have the excuse of not remembering how to
spell her name. So I will likely be writing in the names of Jeff Mackler
and Heather Bradford. At the same time, though, I feel a little guilty
about voting against Alyson.
___
Thomas Paine
“One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
On 4/25/2020 1:47 PM, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Is his party on the ballot in New York State?
I wonder what happens to the votes for candidates whose parties aren't
recognized in the state where one votes. Are they even counted? If they are,
does the total get reported anywhere?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2020 11:56 AM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Jeff Mackler: Why I am Running For President
Here is a You Tube video of an interview with Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action
candidate for president:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zUcoOTI30E&feature=emb_title
--
___
Thomas Paine
“One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
