DeSantis brawn Bill Mitchell pledges to split the vote if Trump wins the GOP nomination
“Trump will NEVER be president again.” I have to ask, who’s he trying to convince?
On Wednesday, Bill Mitchell, a prominent Ron DeSantis influencer, gave conservatives a choice: either dump Donald Trump, or Mitchell will petition “DeSantis supporters” to split the vote and deliver a Democrat victory as punishment for our failure to comply with his demands. See what he said on X:
Here's the plan.
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) August 16, 2023
If Trump keeps being a prick to DeSantis and wins the nomination, DeSantis supporters should organize to write in DeSantis in the General. We'll vote straight red down ballot to make sure we control Congress to keep Biden in check for 4 more years.
But Trump…
First off, has Mitchell been paying attention to the polls? Donald Trump is surging across the board, and at any given time, he’s usually around 50 points ahead of the second place candidate, which, at the moment, oscillates between DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Secondly, did Mitchell even do his research before suggesting such an asinine and unworkable plan? Clearly he did not, so allow me to inform him: most states permit voters to write in a candidate, but unsurprisingly, the rules vary. Per Ballotpedia, there are three categories of “write-in votes” and they are:
No requirements for whom voters may write-in[.]
Only write-in votes for registered candidates will be counted.
No write-in votes allowed[.]
For the 2024 cycle, there are only nine states that fall into the first category; therefore, if you live in one of the other 42 states, you either don’t have the option at all, or your write-in vote for DeSantis won’t count as he’s not running a write-in campaign, and therefore will have missed the requirements and deadlines to be counted as a write-in candidate. Also from Ballotpedia:
Thirty-three states would only accept votes for write-in candidates who officially registered with the state. In order for the vote to be counted, the candidate must have submitted all the necessary registration documents by a specific deadline, either by filing paperwork, paying a fee, collecting signatures, or some combination of the aforementioned.
(Here’s a little heads up: don’t hire this man as a campaign strategist, or, pay him to work for your opponent.)
As a colleague noted, what’s very disturbing is that these Never Trumpers are more excited about the indictments than even the Democrats are. They pretend to be conservatives but, when push comes to shove, will always choose Democrats over conservativism. I also find it rather telling that people like Mitchell will scold Trump for his “divisiveness” and his refusal to sign Ronna McDaniel’s “loyalty pledge,” claiming it’s evidence of Trump’s unwillingness to put country before self: but what in the world would you label a call to split the vote out of spite?
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