“If the GOP forces Romney upon us (and no Independent candidate is worthy), there’s a good chance Cain will be my write-in.”
In another life and time, I’ve written about this before, but you CAN’T “write in” the name of a presidential candidate on the ballot and expect to have it taken seriously.
Why not?, you’re thinking.
Being a Freeper, you’re something of a “Constitutionalist”, are you not? If that’s case, who in reality are you casting a ballot for in the presidential election in your state (same rules apply in all fifty states)?
You ARE NOT casting you’re vote for the candidate himself (or herself). Rather, you are voting for a “slate of electors” for that candidate.
This is because the statewide election IS NOT a popular vote contest for a [single person] candidate. If it were, it would be exactly what the left wants (i.e., the abolishment of the electoral college).
Because of the Electoral College, it’s the responsibility for each candidate to submit a slate of electors who are pledged to represent him/her when the Electoral College convenes after the election. So…. when you vote “for a presidential candidate”, you are in truth voting for a group of electors who will later vote for that candidate in the EC.
The only way a “write in vote” for Herman Cain would be a “valid” vote (as disinguished from a throw-away or joke vote) would be if you actually wrote in the names of each and every “elector” for Mr. Cain. And, because there are none, there would be no one to write in.
That’s the way it works, like it or not. You can write in Mickey Mouse, and it would be as “valid” and meaningful a vote as would be a write-in for Mr. Cain, or for Sarah Palin, for that matter. Which is to say, it would be no vote at all.
Which is why I chuckle every time I see a Freeper exclaim that in protest he is going to write in the candidate of his choice instead. It’s meaningless, and worse, it’s totally a waste of time, because the vote has no meaning and CAN’T BE COUNTED.
That’s the way it is, and if we want to keep our Constitution, that’s the way it should stay.