Election 2004: Vote Early and OftenTo write in or not to write in... in Pennsylvania
Friday, October 22, 2004, 11:48 AM
This story broke about a week ago but it's finally starting to surface in the mainstream press.
Suppose you wanted to learn how to write in your candidate for President in Pennsylvania, someone whose name wasn't already on the ballot.
You might go look at the Pennsylvania Department of State explanation of how to do it.
Or you might go look at the League of Women Voters page describing how to write in your candidate.
Or you might google the news reports. A fine choice. Because, as it turns out, no voter guide describes the correct method, which involves writing in the names of all of the electors which in Pennsylvania means 21 names, all of which must be spelled correctly.
Of course the precise procedures, as well as the amount of room you have to write in these 21 names, varies from county to county, because the voting methods differ as well. A quite disturbing map on the official Pennsylvania voter information web site shows the patchwork of systems available.
Now, multiply this patchwork by 50, and you can see why our problem is not that we might have a repeat of Florida this year. It's that we'll wake up on Nov. 3rd to find that we are facing six Floridas.
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