Adding Bernie Sanders to the totals?

[NOVA Green]

This is actually an interesting subject, compared to some of the other threads on the Forum these days that have descended us the usual squabbling....

In Oregon, there appears to be an almost historic number of write-ins, about 3% of the total statewide vote, and higher than Steins 2%, and only slightly lower than Johnson's 4%.

Unfortunately we won't know who these write-ins were for, unless the SoS certifies the election results next month, however it appears to be statewide and transcends the traditional partisan affiliations of heavily Democratic and Republican counties.

What I suspect is that a significant chunk of these are Bernie votes, who won 35/36 counties in the Democratic Primary, and possibly some Mormon voters writing in McMullen, where especially in Eastern Oregon you have many counties that are 10%+ Mormon, as well as a smaller but significant statewide population.

I know that Donald Duck will usually win about 1,000 votes in Oregon, regardless of whomever is running for President, and some people write in themselves but..... it is absolutely crazy to have 3% write-in votes in Presidential Election out here....

[NOVA Green]

I'd bet that you're on to something about Oregon. Lots of Bernie votes with some McMullin votes sprinkled in. I do hope that they actually break them down though.

Write-In votes do count in Oregon, but it appears that we won't get a complete statewide breakdown, and the data will need to be mined from county level websites, although there are some where this is not available online and will need to be paid for.

I'll take a detailed county look once results are certified, since many counties in the state will likely be posting these numbers to see what I can find. It's either that or a trip to the SoS office in Salem, which thankfully is located in a centrally located part of the state, and then I mine through the county level numbers for free for items not available online.... I used to do that in the late '80s and early '90s, and might be worth taking a few notebooks and some spare change for copies of certain pages to satisfy my election geekdom....

Here's from the Oregon SoS website:

When write-in votes are cast in Oregon, they are counted by a process laid out in Oregon law. A voter can write-in a person's name on the ballot and the vote will count. The write-in votes will be tallied together except if the total number of write-in votes equals or exceeds the number of votes cast for any candidate printed on the ballot of the same office, then the tally will show the total number of votes for each write-in candidate.

The impact of a write-in candidate receiving more votes than either major Presidential party nominee whose electors are already assigned has never been evaluated under applicable Oregon and Federal law since this has not arisen in any previous Presidential election. If such a situation should arise, the Elections Division will take appropriate steps to resolve the question prior to the convening of those electors 30 days after the election.

[NOVA Green]

I'd bet that you're on to something about Oregon. Lots of Bernie votes with some McMullin votes sprinkled in. I do hope that they actually break them down though.

Write-In votes do count in Oregon, but it appears that we won't get a complete statewide breakdown, and the data will need to be mined from county level websites, although there are some where this is not available online and will need to be paid for.

I'll take a detailed county look once results are certified, since many counties in the state will likely be posting these numbers to see what I can find. It's either that or a trip to the SoS office in Salem, which thankfully is located in a centrally located part of the state, and then I mine through the county level numbers for free for items not available online.... I used to do that in the late '80s and early '90s, and might be worth taking a few notebooks and some spare change for copies of certain pages to satisfy my election geekdom....

That's kinda what it's sounding like for CA too. I'll check out 2008 for CA. I know that Ron Paul was an official write in. I seem to recall that not all counties on the Atlas results page have info for Paul. In the case of CA, I don't know how they can not report the officially recognized write ins. It's not like they don't have the data.

The CA Secretary of State doesn't have them listed on the results page. It might be a good idea to wait until the results are certified though. No sense in running around after incomplete numbers.

That's where I'm at for Oregon, but at least results are being counted much quicker for the GE than the 2016 Primary.... took me almost three weeks to get the 100% "unoffical" final results from Oregon, and once the official ones are posted I find out that Bernie unofficially won the one county he "lost" because there were two write-in Bernie votes from Indies or Reps that wrote him in...

Map still looks weird with that one small county in the Grain Belt of Oregon along the Columbia River.

[NOVA Green]

Here's from the Oregon SoS website:

When write-in votes are cast in Oregon, they are counted by a process laid out in Oregon law. A voter can write-in a person's name on the ballot and the vote will count. The write-in votes will be tallied together except if the total number of write-in votes equals or exceeds the number of votes cast for any candidate printed on the ballot of the same office, then the tally will show the total number of votes for each write-in candidate.

The impact of a write-in candidate receiving more votes than either major Presidential party nominee whose electors are already assigned has never been evaluated under applicable Oregon and Federal law since this has not arisen in any previous Presidential election. If such a situation should arise, the Elections Division will take appropriate steps to resolve the question prior to the convening of those electors 30 days after the election.

It looks like the SOS misread or misquoted the statute (ORS 254.500). Parts of the first paragraph quote the statute verbatim, but skip the part that is bolded. Perhaps they were focused on the second part of the question.

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ps Johnson and Stein are (or were) tied in Multnomah County with 12,594 votes.

Interesting.... typically I would find the write-in numbers for Oregon in the final certified statement of votes cast with the detailed precinct level returns, although there are some counties that don't have that information available online. Also, some counties may have migrated to a new system, so I don't know if that information will be as easily accessible this year, although it is definitely on the official documentation provided to the SoS archives in Salem, having gone through the process of trawling through the data some years back.