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Man changes name to Literally Anybody Else and announces US presidential run
(www.theguardian.com)
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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.