cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/9649718
A Texas man has legally changed his name to Literally Anybody Else and announced he is running for US president in the 2024 election.
Formerly known as Dustin Ebey, the 35-year-old is a US army veteran and seventh-grade math teacher in the suburbs of Dallas, and now has a Texas driver’s license to prove his name change.
He said he wanted to change his name because he was unsatisfied with this year’s presidential candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
“Three hundred million people can do better,” he said in reference to the two frontrunners for the nation’s highest office. “There really should be some outlet for people like me who are just so fed up with this constant power grab between the two parties that just has no benefit to the common person.
most places have intent laws and it’s usually up to the county officials and secretary of states to enforce those laws. doesn’t mean it gets enforced fully or that parties won’t try their best to play things to their advantage on ballots by playing with rules or even ballot designs. however, I think any election official, politics aside, will investigate a person named Literally Anybody Else being elected by write in.
I’m sorry, I’m hung up on you saying election officials would track down the voter to confirm their intent. And you mentioned you volunteered or worked in elections possibly in not-the-US. In the US (or at least in my state) ballots are anonymous. That was why such a fuss was made in 2000 over trying to determine what the voter intended if a ballot had a “hanging chad”. They couldn’t just track down the person to confirm, and the margins were close enough to call a recount but not for a do-over. It was election purgatory.
no, I worked in the US. they are only anonymous in the scanning and tally process. your counted vote cannot be tracked to you. many places, once the election worker opens your ballot and take the contents out, your vote is secured. others will make sure your ballot is valid and intent is made. there’s also a difference between tracking someone down because clear intent (i.e. not signing their ballot) vs completely fucking up and we just don’t count it. most cases we just don’t count it because there is no clear intent at all. laws and voting systems have also changed that made paper trails a bit more clear over the years because of that election.
edit: also, they generally don’t track anybody down unless there’s something like a recount or things are very close in the election where several votes make the difference. if we’re gonna be completely honest. write ins aren’t even counted /read at all unless there’s a close election where it can possibly make a difference mathematically. most just have a section “Write in” in their system but not what people wrote in.