rgh@inmet.UUCP (10/14/84)
#R:brl-tgr:-515000:inmet:6400121:000:992 inmet!rgh Oct 12 11:59:00 1984 > On election day, most of the voters (over 51%) > write in the name "John Johnson" in the write-in space for this office. > Now here's the key point: there are MULTIPLE "John Johnson"s living in > this town, all qualified for election to this office. My understanding of election laws, at least here in Massachusetts, is that you have to write in the person's legal address as well as their name. Name+address seems to be the standard full legal identification: contracts always seem to mention the addresses of the parties thereto. The address serves to disambiguate in all but the worst cases. [A local comedian says his parents named both him and his twin brother "Fred" so "they wouldn't get us confused".] So write-in campaigns take a fair amount of organization: such candidates will typically distribute little stickers with their name and address on them to affix to paper ballots; I'm not sure how voting machines are handled. Randy Hudson {ihnp4,harpo,ima}!inmet!rgh