WRITE IN CANDIDATE WOES

If you read my last tongue in cheek blog, you know I'm running for President as a write-in candidate.  I'm running with the desire to get just one vote, but that might be difficult if no impossible.  I can run for the highest office in the land only if I qualify as a write-in candidate, and if you try to do that, I'll fail.  You'll find that most states who control voting laws aren't wild about having someone like me on the ballot.  In fact, I won't be on the ballot at all.  All I'll be, if qualified to run, is a blank where you can write in my name.  Well, that's the way it is in most states, and the rules vary from place to place.

And, if you check into it, you find that running as a write-in candidate is expensive.  You can't just declare your candidacy and expect to get a vote because they'll disallow that.  You've got to register with the state, shuck out the bucks which could be several thousand dollars, and then run almost in total anonymity.  Some write-in candidates have actually been elected to office, but that's a long shot at best.  The laws are set up to make it hard on write-in candidates, who are view mostly as an irritation or nuisance.  Come to think of it, that's exactly what I want to be - a nuisance.

Here in Texas, if I try to run as a write-in, I'd have some big buck in the campaign, and that's not what I want.  I've already promised not to campaign, won't make speeches, won't shake hands, won't ever show my face at a public rally, none of that.  I guess what that means is that I won't be able to get the one vote I'm looking for, just to say I actually got a vote for President.  The powers that be have made it practically impossible for me to present myself to the electorate as a protest candidate who doesn't want to hold office but will allow a fully disgusted voter to waste a vote rather than give it to someone they don't trust.  My name won't be on the ballot, and there might not be any way for  you to write me in.  Electronic voting makes it hard to do that.  But if you by chance vote in an old time precinct that still uses paper ballots, scribble my name on it and stuff it in the box.  They'll probably chuck the ballot, won't count it, and I won't know if I got my one vote.  Drat!

But . . . maybe between now and then I can figure a way to get my name on a ballot somewhere.  I'll keep working on it . . . not hard, but I'll check it out.  Maybe I'll end up in jail for violating state law, so I should qualify my candidacy as calling it unofficial.