Pro-Palestine groups have organized protest votes in several state primaries.

Pennsylvania’s Tuesday vote saw advocates asking Democrats to write in ‘uncommitted’ on the presidential ticket on their ballot.

"The significance lies in sending a clear message to President Biden that we, as Pennsylvania voters, cannot support his financial backing of actions in Gaza that conflict with our core values of peace and humanity,” said organizers of the campaign in an email. "Voting Uncommitted is our way of expressing dissent and demanding change."

The group reports 58,345 write-in votes reported across the state so far. That’s almost a 20,000 vote increase from write-in votes in the 2020 Democrat Primary (39,601 write-ins).

Not concerned with votes being specifically ‘uncommitted’, the group says over 100,000 Pennsylvania Democrat voters picked an option other than Joe Biden.

"Biden only won the Commonwealth by 80,000 votes in 2020. Trump won by just 44,000 in 2016. Both margins of victory are eclipsed by total non-Biden votes in yesterday's Democratic primary,” said the campaign. "We have sent a clear message in the key swing state of Pennsylvania: to secure victory in our state in November, Biden must drastically change course in Gaza."

While advocacy groups are using a protest vote to call for a ceasefire in the Gaza War;

Election officials are tracking every vote.

 

The Write-In

The Uncommitted campaign may never know the exact amount of voters who specifically participated in the protest; compared to those who legitimately had a different person in mind for candidate.

“Frankly, write-in adjudication is the longest process of the election certification.” said Christopher Seeley, a board of elections member in Crawford County. “It can take days, weeks, to tabulate every vote."

Part of the delays- and unknowns- come from legal ambiguities that counties must navigate while reporting the votes. Depending on the county, and the race the write-in vote was cast in, the vote may remain categorized as a ’scattered write-in’.

The opposite being the county specifically reports that, eg; ‘uncommitted’ earned an exact amount of votes.

 

Uniformity?

While write in campaigns can make bold protest statements (and movements might not be overly concerned with ’the exacts’ as long as their point is made), careful reporting is critical to the vitality of local municipalities.

This is where legal ambiguities can turn into vexing contemplation for swamped election offices.

“Say you want to run for township supervisor where you live,” started Seeley.

To get on the primary ballot, a candidate must get enough signatures on a petition and file proper paperwork. But not all candidates participate in that process.

"Either you didn’t know you wanted to run, you flubbed up your petition- whatever it may be.,” said Seeley. "You have the option of running a write-in campaign. And in order to be nominated, you have to have as many write-ins as it would have taken signatures in a petition."

In many township supervisor positions, that would require 10 petitions, and thus 10 write in votes.

But what if you only get 8?

“Do we have to report those eight variations of your name as votes? Or can we consider them scattered write-ins and move on. Because you did not have enough to to be duly nominated,” said Seeley, “But people still voted for you."

Seeley said there is no guidance from the state on how to answer the question— and setting a standard makes an impact on how much time it takes to certify the votes.

“If we have to report 8 ‘Karas’, and the various spellings that come with that, our tabulation process slows WAY down,” said Seeley- who sees write-in qualifications as just one of many election laws that would benefit from an update.

“A rule made from on high without talking to us first can create a huge administrative burden,” said Seeley. "But on the flip side of that, we've been asking for some standardization and a lot of in a lot of areas and it's fallen on deaf ears."

 

Wrap It Up

In Pennsylvania, presidential candidates need 2000 petition signatures to get on the primary ballot.

Each county will have choices to make on how they report the uncommitted write-in votes.