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What does "Official Write-In Status" means?
In most states, for a "write-in" candidate to be valid, they have to apply for write-in status beforehand.
Yes, but in most countries if you get the required number of signatures, you show on the ballot. The write-in status is an American only thing, as far as I know.
The name is not listed, but there is a space in the bottom of the ballot where you can write her name
That seems really backwards for a country that claims to be so democratic. Also seems like a really easy way to dismiss votes, because they didn't perfectly write the name.
Lots of Americans write in names like Mickey Mouse. If they were to honour every choice made by write in, there is a possibility that at some point people could elect a fictional character, and then what? They'd have to redo the whole election because a fictional character cannot hold office.
That's not my point. What I'm saying is this. If the name of the candidate is "Claudia de la Cruz" and someone writes "Claudia Cruz" instead. Does their vote get burnt? See what I mean? It seems like a very easy way to manipulate results.
In most countries in Europe an improperly filled ballot becomes void. In the US, iirc, improperly filled ballots or those that are hard to read are sent to a committee where two separate people try to determine voter intent. If someone writes "Claudia Cruz" instead of "Claudia de la Cruz", I'm sure the committee would recognise for whom the vote is meant.
For electronic voting machines at least, the write-in candidates are on a separate screen but don't typically require actually hand-writing in the names; you just select the write-in candidate like you would any other.
LOL JUST KIDDING. Here in the grand old state of Texas at least, they force you to manually type in the write-in candidates, despite already having a list of approved write-ins available that they could add as buttons like they do for the other candidates. AND they don't list the party affiliations for the write-in candidates either.
But hey: this is bourgeois democracy, folks.