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Write-In Vote
Voters sometimes choose not to vote for any candidate listed on a ballot. At such times they may instead write in the name of another person. This voting option is usually available under regulations that vary from state to state.
Perhaps more than any other aspect of elections, write-in voting has held an uncertain place in the constitutional guarantee of the right to vote. This ambiguity reflects the perceived inefficiency of counting write-in votes when elections are conducted with printed ballots or voting machines.
The U.S. Constitution leaves to each state the administration of its own elections and also gives each state the dominant role in conducting federal elections within its borders. Additionally, the Supreme Court has taken into account the need for substantial state regulation of the electoral process so that elections may be held in a fair and orderly way. (See State and federal election responsibilities.)
At the same time, however, the Court in numerous instances has upheld voters' rights and invalidated some state regulations as too restrictive. Many observers therefore were surprised when the Court ruled 6–3 in a Hawaii case June 8, 1992, that states may prohibit write-in voting altogether, rejecting arguments that such action violates citizens' rights to free speech and political association. The Court made it clear, however, that a state is free to provide for write-in voting and that the Court's decision should not be read to discourage such voting.
In the colonial period and in the early decades of the United States, all voting by ballots was, in a sense, write-in voting. Preprinted ballots were not yet in use, and voters wrote on their ballots the name of their choice for public office. Actually, during that time most elections, especially in the South, were decided by voice vote.
Secret Ballot
In the face of widespread voting corruption, the Australian ballot was introduced in the United States in the 1880s; it filled the need for an absolutely secret and indistinguishable ballot. Its size, shape, and color gave no indication of what candidates or political parties the user voted for. Previously, parties printed and distributed their own ballots, making split ticket or third-party voting difficult if not impossible. (See Ballot types.)
By about 1910 most of the states had adopted the Australian system. About that time, too, voting machines were beginning to be used, and in the computer age they play an ever-larger role in elections.
Generally, after the Australian ballot came into use, states made available a blank line on the paper ballots for write-in votes. Then too, manufacturers of voting machines typically included a device that made write-in votes possible, if seldom easy.
The history of elections is replete with failed write-in candidacies. But in at least three instances write-in votes have had national significance. An impressive demonstration of voter sentiment occurred in Minnesota's 1952 Republican presidential primary when more than a hundred thousand voters wrote in Dwight D. Eisenhower's name. That showing of strength gave Eisenhower a commanding lead in his contest with Sen. Robert A. Taft of Ohio for the GOP nomination. Two years later, Strom Thurmond, a former governor of South Carolina, received 143,442 write-in votes in the Democratic primary election for U.S. senator, defeating the party-endorsed candidate. At that time a Democratic southern primary victory virtually ensured election. Thurmond, who switched to the Republican Party in 1964, is the only U.S. senator to owe election to write-in votes.
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