I'm not sure if this is in the correct section, please forgive me if it is not. I have been searching for some answers regarding a question I have about how voting is reported and recorded in US Presidential elections. The most difficult aspect of investigating this matter is deciding what exactly to search for. All of the expressions I have used in Google and a number of legal databases have come up with too many unrelated results and I'm beginning to get a bit frustrated. Anyway, onto the details of my question. I'm curious what legislation exists to regulate the public reporting of vote counts, particularly of write-in votes in those states(districts) that allow it. Are there certain thresholds that can be reached that require these votes to be reported alongside the major candidates? Are there no requirements at all? Must a write-in be a known individual for them to be counted? Are these requirements, if any, consistent with those of midterm elections? Can anyone link me to the legal verbiage that would cover this? For example, if 4% of Alabama general election voters write-in, "John Smith" must these votes be reported? What if 4% were to write-in, "no brainer" or something not identifiable as a name? I promise I have good reasoning for this question, as silly as it may seem, but it is a bit hard for me to explain in a short post. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Each State has a list of write-in candidates that have been registered for the Presidential election. If you are in a State where the candidate has not been registered, it is pointless to write his name in on the ballot. Different States have different laws about how your votes are used to elect the President. It is not actually you directly voting for the President, but rather special electors who are appointed by each State legislature (or by the laws which that legislature has passed) who then go on to determine who the president will be. Currently, each State designates electors by popular vote. Wikipedia provides a good explanation of how the process usually works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election#Electoral_college
