And this time democracy won.

As a member of Montpelier's Board of Civil Authority I have to go out and work every election day, doing various tasks connected with counting ballots. One of our tasks is to record and count the write-ins, and there are often a lot. We don't count votes for obviously fictitious characters, like Mickey Mouse or Eric Cartman (an actual write-in this year), but we do count votes for everyone else.

Sometimes it actually makes a difference, especially for the down-ticket offices, and on rare occasion an organized write-in campaign gets someone elected, but ordinarily the write-in is probably a protest vote or a friendly gesture to someone the voter likes and thinks might get a kick out of getting a vote or two.

Counting the write-ins can be time-consuming because even in towns with machine counting the write-ins must be recorded and counted by hand. It would be a misstatement to say that the election officials are always happy to deal with them.

A couple of weeks ago, in the context of some legislation pertaining to recounts, the House Gov Ops Committee got the idea to squelch the curse of write-ins once and for all. Here's the amendment they proposed:

Sec. 3. 17 V.S.A. § 2414 is added to read:
§ 2414. WRITE-IN CANDIDATES; DECLARATION OF CANDIDACY
(a) A person who has not been nominated by any other procedure set forth n this chapter and whose name will not appear on the ballot for a particular office may be written in on a ballot for any office in a primary, general, or pecial election. However, a “write-in” candidate shall file a declaration of andidacy for an office with the office of the secretary of state not later than 5 p.m. on the Friday preceding the election if the candidate wishes to have the votes cast for his or her name counted by name for that office. The secretary

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of state shall prepare and make available a declaration of candidacy form to be ompleted, signed, and filed by a “write-in candidate” before the deadline.
(b) The secretary of state shall notify all town clerks of each write-in andidate who has filed a declaration of candidacy prior to the deadline. Each andidate who has filed a declaration of candidacy shall have votes cast ecorded next to his or her write-in name in the vote counting process and shall ave his or her votes reported by name on the official return of votes. If a eclaration of candidacy has not been filed, the name of the write-in candidate hall not be recorded, but the vote cast shall be recorded as a “scattered rite-in” on all counting forms and on the official return of votes.

Get it? It doesn't matter who you wanted to vote for as a write-in, if they didn't file a candidate declaration it's just as though you hadn't cast a vote.

 I just think this is wrong. Democracy means you get to vote for whoever you want to vote for. That's partly why I don't like term limits.

I'm happy to say, this didn't stand up for long. Special appreciation goes to a tripartisan array of opponents: Reps. Anne Donahue, Sandy Haas, Willem Jewett, and Tom Koch, who vociferously opposed this proposal and got the committee to drop it.

Remember: it's your vote, so use it.