Funny Write Ins for 2016 Election

The number of New Jersey voters who tossed their presidential vote to Mickey Mouse, Betty White or Tulsi Gabbard this year dipped dramatically after skyrocketing in 2016.

Election results from most of New Jersey's 21 counties show 13,600 people cast personal choices for president in 2020, down from 29,000 four years ago (Essex and Middlesex have not reported their totals). The 2016 contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump saw six times as many voters cast write-ins compared to the previous presidential race in 2012.

The personal choices of this year's voters are the usual mix of legitimate politicians like Gabbard and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, celebrities like Michael J. Fox and Megan Thee Stallion and cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse and Scooby-Doo.

Two Burlington County voters wrote in Joe Exotic, the imprisoned star of Netflix series "Tiger King." A voter in Gloucester gave their nod to "Barbie the doll" and Kermit the Frog. Someone in Bergen County cast a vote for "The Fly On Pence's Head," a reference to the bug that landed and lingered on Vice President Mike Pence during an October debate.

Eight states allow voters to write in anyone they want for any office, including New Jersey. Thirty-three other states require candidates to file in advance for write-in votes to count, and eight states provide no write-in option.

Monika McDermott is a political science professor at Fordham University who studies voting behavior, political psychology and public opinion. McDermott said write-in votes tend to be protest votes, so it's no surprise there were far more in 2016 than this year.

Four years ago, the two chief presidential candidates were Clinton, who Gallup says had the second-highest unfavorable rating of any presidential candidate in the modern era, and Trump, who had the highest unfavorable rating.

With lower unfavorable ratings this time around — Trump's dropped by 10 points and Biden's was nine points lower than Clinton's — more voters were comfortable with the top choices in 2020, McDermott said.

"Hillary Clinton was much less popular than Joe Biden has proven to be in general among Democrats, so that's probably why the numbers in 2016 were higher," she said. "Plus, Trump was an unknown at that point so people might have been less committed to him."

Statewide, less than half of 1% of the 4.6 million ballots cast for president were personal choices. Four years ago the figure was 2%.

New Jersey does not compile figures on write-in votes, so NorthJersey.com reviewed election results from its 21 counties.

Some voters cast a vote for "personal choice" then didn't pick a name. In Cumberland County, where 167 voters chose personal choice, only 28 wrote in someone.

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Only 13 counties responded to requests for a breakdown of their write-in votes or posted them online. The results show the most popular 2020 write-in votes by far were for Sanders and rapper Kanye West, who attempted to get on the Garden State presidential ballot but was booted off when an election lawyer argued his nomination petitions were filled with phony names.

In Bergen County, which has more voters than any other New Jersey county, Sanders bested West 155 to 125. West topped Sanders in Hunterdon, 34 to 23. Sanders won the most write-in votes in Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Gloucester, Monmouth, Somerset and Warren counties, with West No. 2 in all except Somerset. Sanders beat West in Union County, 86 to 66, and in Salem County, West beat Sanders 11 to 7.

Sanders actually won more votes in New Jersey — at least 683 — than he did in his home state of Vermont, where 619 people wrote him in for president.

Other popular names for write-in voters were Michael Bloomberg, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, Andrew Yang and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

Being alive isn't a prerequisite. Ronald Reagan won at least five votes — a Burlington County voter wrote Reagan in for vice president, with George Washington at the top of that ticket — and Babe Ruth won a single vote in Camden.

There are also explicit expressions of unhappiness with the candidates: "I am embarrassed," "None worthy for president," and "(Expletive) both of them."

Some voters tried to be funny, like the Burlington one who wrote in "Ur mom" and the Union voter who cast a ballot for "Joe Mama."

There are off-color choices (Salem County has a note on its election results website apologizing for those). And then there's the just plain strange: someone in Union County wrote in "Nixon's head," a potential "Futurama" reference.

New Jersey voter Malek Shafei said he isn't a fan of Biden or of Trump, so he wrote in Kanye West for president. Shafei said he knows what his vote is worth in New Jersey — a state so solidly Democratic in presidential races some voters feel like their votes don't count — so he did not feel motivated to vote for the lesser of two evils.

"Although I know the vote would be futile, I wanted to support an artist who was very influential to me and my generation," he said. "I would go as far as to say that Kanye has had more of a positive influence on America and its population than Trump did or than Biden will."

Terrence T. McDonald is a reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: mcdonaldt@northjersey.com

Twitter: @terrencemcd

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Source: https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/27/rick-astley-ur-mom-kanye-nj-voters-write-in-presidential-votes/6355043002/

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