Write-in, right on-but can they spell?

Lou Barletta made an effort to have Democrats in Hazleton cast a write-in ballot for him and it paid off winning both nominations. Bob Cordaro got bounced from the Lakawanna County Commissioners race but won the nomination with a write-in campaign. And there are 1,403 write-in votes for county coroner and 1,261 votes for district attorney in Tuesday’s primary election on the Republican side according to the CV. So one of the losers of Tuesday's races may appear on the ballot in the fall. But the catch is that the candidate's name must be spelled right for the ballot to count and any variations may end up in court as pointed out in the TL.

Does this open up all sorts of possibilities. In future elections a candidate could skip the whole petition process and just urge his/her supporters to type their name in. A write-in campaign will still be a long shot but will be easier than it was in the past when you had to actually write the name on a little strip of paper on the mechanical machine or use a sticker. If some write-in candidates start winning elections I'm sure that you will hear an outcry from powers that be to either raise the threshold for nomination from the present 250 votes or get rid of the electronic machines altogether.