This week, more than 60,000 Democratic voters in Pennsylvania didn’t choose Joe Biden as their presidential candidate. Instead, they sent back their papers with a write-in candidate.
The Associated Press, which doesn’t usually keep track of write-ins, says that the wave of them made up 5.6% of the vote in the Keystone State primary, or 60,271 votes.
Uncommitted PA, a group of people and groups in the state who are against Biden’s support for Israel’s war against Hamas, asked Democratic voters before Tuesday’s election to write “uncommitted” to show they didn’t agree with the governor.
The group was happy with the primary results, calling them a “massive write-in victory.”
In a statement, the group said, “Uncommitted PA believes that the outcome of the primary election serves as a strong indicator of how voters will feel in the November election.” “The write-in and undervote votes show that Pennsylvania voters aren’t sure if they want to vote for Biden.”
There were almost 130,000 write-ins and votes overall for Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who dropped his radical run for the White House earlier this year.
“Biden won the Commonwealth by only 80,000 votes in 2020,” Uncommitted PA said. “In 2016, Trump won by only 44,000 votes.” Total votes cast that were not for Biden in yesterday’s Democratic primary blew out both of their lead margins of win.
“We made it clear in Pennsylvania—a key swing state—that Biden needs to make big changes in Gaza if he wants to win our state in November.”
There’s no way to tell how many of the write-in votes were for “uncommitted.”
Pennsylvania doesn’t have a “uncommitted” choice on the ballot like some other states do.
The Philadelphia Inquirer says it could take weeks for counties to report the results of the write-in votes.
Some counties in Pennsylvania could choose not to report write-in votes that weren’t cast for a “person,” the news source says.
A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State said, “If write-in votes are cast for something other than a person, the counties can choose to record those write-in votes in a category called “scattered.” “Since they weren’t cast for a “person,” it’s likely that we won’t know what the specific write-ins said.”
This primary season, Biden has faced similar protest votes in a number of states.
In March, 100,000 in Michigan’s Democratic primary who had not yet decided who they would vote for did not vote because they did not agree with the president’s decision to not call for a lasting cease-fire in Gaza.
It was 13% of the vote, and the Michigan party that wasn’t committed got two delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August.
Nearly 19% of Democratic primary voters in Minnesota last month cast “uncommitted” ballots, adding up to more than 45,900 votes. Eleven delegates were taken from Biden by that effort.
More than 48,000 “uninstructed” votes were made in the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary earlier this month, also to protest Biden’s handling of the Middle East conflict. These votes added up to 8.3% of the total vote.
Pennsylvania hasn’t committed yet, even though Biden and former President Trump are in a close race in the state. In November, 19 electoral votes will be up for grabs.
A Fox News study that came out last week shows that both candidates have the same amount of support: 48%.
When third-party candidates are taken into account, Trump beats Biden by 44% to 42%.
