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Man changes name to Literally Anybody Else and announces US presidential run
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
690 points (96.7% liked)
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Write-in campaign huh. Wonder if some people will accidentally vote for him and whether that would count
That's probably the idea, and yes, any valid vote counts.
literally not how it works. most places require voter intent. meaning only votes people meant to cast count. if a voting official notices that a person named Literally Anybody Else won by a write in, they'd go through all the ballots and make sure the ballots literally say Literally Anybody Else written out validly like a name. those in who they aren't sure of would require another election official to track down the voter and ask for their intent.
source: worked in the ballot counting process of a country. they literally have teams trying to decide shit like if you filled all bubble on scantrons, but circled one of the bubbles, does that count as intent? does it count as intent if they circle all the bubbles but not fill any of the scantrons bubbles? and yes, they count the votes even if they don't follow scantron directions but clearly demonstrate intent. i.e drawing arrows with a thing saying "this one!" next to all the bubbles you want may count as intent.
Someone wasn't paying attention in 2000..
The Republicans have been trying to trick people into unintentionally voting for Republicans or nobody for several decades now..
most places have intent laws and it's usually up to the county officials and secretary of states to enforce those laws. doesn't mean it gets enforced fully or that parties won't try their best to play things to their advantage on ballots by playing with rules or even ballot designs. however, I think any election official, politics aside, will investigate a person named Literally Anybody Else being elected by write in.
I'm sorry, I'm hung up on you saying election officials would track down the voter to confirm their intent. And you mentioned you volunteered or worked in elections possibly in not-the-US. In the US (or at least in my state) ballots are anonymous. That was why such a fuss was made in 2000 over trying to determine what the voter intended if a ballot had a "hanging chad". They couldn't just track down the person to confirm, and the margins were close enough to call a recount but not for a do-over. It was election purgatory.
no, I worked in the US. they are only anonymous in the scanning and tally process. your counted vote cannot be tracked to you. many places, once the election worker opens your ballot and take the contents out, your vote is secured. others will make sure your ballot is valid and intent is made. there's also a difference between tracking someone down because clear intent (i.e. not signing their ballot) vs completely fucking up and we just don't count it. most cases we just don't count it because there is no clear intent at all. laws and voting systems have also changed that made paper trails a bit more clear over the years because of that election.
edit: also, they generally don't track anybody down unless there's something like a recount or things are very close in the election where several votes make the difference. if we're gonna be completely honest. write ins aren't even counted /read at all unless there's a close election where it can possibly make a difference mathematically. most just have a section "Write in" in their system but not what people wrote in.
This is why everyone leaves personally identifying information on the ballot and when you vote they take your vote, look over it, and put it in a box assigned to your name.
It takes a few days for all votes to appear on the public vote registry where everyone can see who you voted for, and sometimes the president will call you to thank you for your vote.
Source: I am the president
XD
your votes are anonymous but your ballot packet is not. if you drop your ballot packet on the floor on the way to the ballot box, it can be traced to you simply by going to the voter registry where your ballot was issued or any other identifying info on the ballot envelope. however, once contents are opened and the ballot is separated from the packet, it is anonymous and your casted vote is anonymous and can't be traced to you. but election workers can open it and put it aside if they open it and a bunch of confetti falls out or noticed that it's not signed or whatever.
Any election where this is even possible is a waste of everyone's time. I don't know what country you worked in, but wherever you were, those were corrupt wastes of time, not elections.
like I said in other posts, your casted vote is anonymous but not your ballot packet. when you cast a vote into the system, it can't be traced to you. so nobody can say I want a list of all the people who voted for Biden. but if you drop your ballot packet outside the polling location, polling officials can look you up on the voter poll registration book and identify that packet belongs to you. most places only anonymize your data when they separate the ballot from the envelope it's enclosed in. usually before that, there is an id matched to your ballot packet to your voter registration. some counties vet ballots prior to separating ballots from packets. this is mostly done for checking intent and that there aren't weird shit in there (a lot of people stuff gifts and stuff into their envelopes) before being sent off for tallying.
If you're going to do goofy stuff with your ballot you should know what the laws are so your funny joke nobody sees doesn't spoil your ballot entirely and make none of your votes count.
Jokes on you, I live in Tennessee and the Democrats gave up on my formerly purple county