George M. Cohan Early career what did he do in his early career? Cohan began writing original skits (over 150 of them) what were some of his skits? I don't know.
who did he write for?
Who did George M. Cohan write for?
Cohan began writing original skits (over 150 of them) and songs for the family act in both vaudeville and minstrel shows while in his teens. Soon he was writing professionally, selling his first songs to a national publisher in 1893. In 1901 he wrote, directed and produced his first Broadway musical, The Governor's Son, for The Four Cohans. His first big Broadway hit in 1904 was the show Little Johnny Jones, which introduced his tunes "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "The Yankee Doodle Boy."  Cohan became one of the leading Tin Pan Alley songwriters, publishing upwards of 300 original songs noted for their catchy melodies and clever lyrics. His major hit songs included "You're a Grand Old Flag," "Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway," "Mary Is a Grand Old Name," "The Warmest Baby in the Bunch," "Life's a Funny Proposition After All," "I Want To Hear a Yankee Doodle Tune," "You Won't Do Any Business If You Haven't Got a Band," "The Small Town Gal," "I'm Mighty Glad I'm Living, That's All," "That Haunting Melody," "Always Leave Them Laughing When You Say Goodbye", and America's most popular World War I song "Over There", which was recorded by Enrico Caruso among others. The latter song reached such currency among troops and shipyard workers that a ship was named "Costigan" after Cohan's grandfather, Dennis Costigan. During the christening, "Over There" was played.  From 1904 to 1920, Cohan created and produced over 50 musicals, plays and revues on Broadway together with his friend Sam H. Harris, including Give My Regards to Broadway and the successful Going Up in 1917, which became a smash hit in London the following year. His shows ran simultaneously in as many as five theatres. One of Cohan's most innovative plays was a dramatization of the mystery Seven Keys to Baldpate in 1913, which baffled some audiences and critics but became a hit. Cohan further adapted it as a film in 1917, and it was adapted for film six more times, as well as for TV and radio. He dropped out of acting for some years after his 1919 dispute with Actors' Equity Association.  In 1925, he published his autobiography, Twenty Years on Broadway and the Years It Took To Get There. CANNOTANSWER
Soon he was writing professionally, selling his first songs to a national publisher in 1893.
George Michael Cohan (July 3, 1878November 5, 1942) was an American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer and theatrical producer.

Cohan began his career as a child, performing with his parents and sister in a vaudeville act known as "The Four Cohans". Beginning with Little Johnny Jones in 1904, he wrote, composed, produced, and appeared in more than three dozen Broadway musicals. Cohan wrote more than 50 shows and published more than 300 songs during his lifetime, including the standards "Over There", "Give My Regards to Broadway", "The Yankee Doodle Boy" and "You're a Grand Old Flag". As a composer, he was one of the early members of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). He displayed remarkable theatrical longevity, appearing in films until the 1930s and continuing to perform as a headline artist until 1940.

Known in the decade before World War I as "the man who owned Broadway", he is considered the father of American musical comedy. His life and music were depicted in the Oscar-winning film Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and the 1968 musical George M! A statue of Cohan in Times Square, New York City commemorates his contributions to American musical theatre.

Early life

Cohan was born in 1878 in Providence, Rhode Island, to Irish Catholic parents. A baptismal certificate from St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church (which gave the wrong first name for his mother) indicated that Cohan was born on July 3, but he and his family always insisted that he had been "born on the Fourth of July!" His parents were traveling vaudeville performers, and he joined them on stage while still an infant, first as a prop, learning to dance and sing soon after he could walk and talk.

Cohan started as a child performer at age 8, first on the violin and then as a dancer. He was the fourth member of the family vaudeville act called The Four Cohans, which included his father Jeremiah "Jere" (Keohane) Cohan (1848–1917), mother Helen "Nellie" Costigan Cohan (1854–1928) and sister Josephine "Josie" Cohan Niblo (1876–1916). In 1890, he toured as the star of a show called Peck's Bad Boy and then joined the family act. The Four Cohans mostly toured together from 1890 to 1901. Cohan and his sister made their Broadway debuts in 1893 in a sketch called The Lively Bootblack. Temperamental in his early years, he later learned to control his frustrations. During these years, he originated his famous curtain speech: "My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you."

As a child, Cohan and his family toured most of the year and spent summer vacations from the vaudeville circuit at his grandmother's home in North Brookfield, Massachusetts, where he befriended baseball player Connie Mack. The family generally gave a performance at the town hall there each summer, and Cohan had a chance to gain some more normal childhood experiences, like riding his bike and playing sandlot baseball. His memories of those happy summers inspired his 1907 musical 50 Miles from Boston, which is set in North Brookfield and contains one of his most famous songs, "Harrigan". As he matured through his teens, he used the quiet summers there to write. When he returned to the town in the cast of Ah, Wilderness! in 1934, he told a reporter "I've knocked around everywhere, but there's no place like North Brookfield."

Career

Early career

Cohan began writing original skits (over 150 of them) and songs for the family act in both vaudeville and minstrel shows while in his teens. Soon he was writing professionally, selling his first songs to a national publisher in 1893. In 1901 he wrote, directed and produced his first Broadway musical, The Governor's Son, for The Four Cohans. His first big Broadway hit in 1904 was the show Little Johnny Jones, which introduced his tunes "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "The Yankee Doodle Boy".

Cohan became one of the leading Tin Pan Alley songwriters, publishing upwards of 300 original songs noted for their catchy melodies and clever lyrics. His major hit songs included "You're a Grand Old Flag," "Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway," "Mary Is a Grand Old Name," "The Warmest Baby in the Bunch," "Life's a Funny Proposition After All," "I Want To Hear a Yankee Doodle Tune," "You Won't Do Any Business if You Haven't Got a Band," "The Small Town Gal," "I'm Mighty Glad I'm Living, That's All," "That Haunting Melody," "Always Leave Them Laughing When You Say Goodbye", and America's most popular World War I song "Over There", recorded by Nora Bayes and by Enrico Caruso, and others. The latter song reached such currency among troops and shipyard workers that a ship was named "Costigan" after Cohan's grandfather, Dennis Costigan. During the christening, "Over There" was played.

From 1904 to 1920, Cohan created and produced over 50 musicals, plays and revues on Broadway together with his friend Sam H. Harris, including Give My Regards to Broadway and the successful Going Up in 1917, which became a smash hit in London the following year. His shows ran simultaneously in as many as five theatres. One of Cohan's most innovative plays was a dramatization of the mystery Seven Keys to Baldpate in 1913, which baffled some audiences and critics but became a hit. Cohan further adapted it as a film in 1917, and it was adapted for film six more times, as well as for TV and radio. He dropped out of acting for some years after his 1919 dispute with Actors' Equity Association.

In 1925, he published his autobiography Twenty Years on Broadway and the Years It Took to Get There.

Later career

Cohan appeared in 1930 in The Song and Dance Man, a revival of his tribute to vaudeville and his father. In 1932, he starred in a dual role as a cold, corrupt politician and his charming, idealistic campaign double in the Hollywood musical film The Phantom President. The film co-starred Claudette Colbert and Jimmy Durante, with songs by Rodgers and Hart, and was released by Paramount Pictures. He appeared in some earlier silent films but he disliked Hollywood production methods and only made one other sound film, Gambling (1934), based on his own 1929 play and shot in New York City. A critic called Gambling a "stodgy adaptation of a definitely dated play directed in obsolete theatrical technique". It is considered a lost film.

Cohan earned acclaim as a serious actor in Eugene O'Neill's only comedy Ah, Wilderness! (1933) and in the role of a song-and-dance President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Rodgers and Hart's musical I'd Rather Be Right (1937). The same year, he reunited with Harris to produce a play titled Fulton of Oak Falls, starring Cohan. His final play, The Return of the Vagabond (1940), featured a young Celeste Holm in the cast.

In 1940, Judy Garland played the title role in a film version of his 1922 musical Little Nellie Kelly. Cohan's mystery play Seven Keys to Baldpate was first filmed in 1916 and has been remade seven times, most recently as House of the Long Shadows (1983), starring Vincent Price. In 1942, a musical biopic of Cohan, Yankee Doodle Dandy, was released, and James Cagney's performance in the title role earned the Best Actor Academy Award. The film was privately screened for Cohan as he battled the last stages of abdominal cancer, and he commented on Cagney's performance: "My God, what an act to follow!" Cohan's 1920 play The Meanest Man in the World was filmed in 1943 with Jack Benny.

Legacy
Although Cohan mainly is remembered for his songs, he became an early pioneer in the development of the "book musical", using his engaging libretti to bridge the gaps between drama and music. More than three decades before Agnes de Mille choreographed Oklahoma!, Cohan used dance not merely as razzle-dazzle, but to advance the plot. Cohan's main characters were "average Joes and Janes" who appealed to a wide American audience.

In 1914, Cohan became one of the founding members of ASCAP. Although Cohan was known as generous to his fellow actors in need, in 1919, he unsuccessfully opposed a historic strike by Actors' Equity Association, for which many in the theatrical professions never forgave him. Cohan opposed the strike because in addition to being an actor in his productions, he was also the producer of the musical that set the terms and conditions of the actors' employment. During the strike, he donated $100,000 to finance the Actors' Retirement Fund in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. After Actors' Equity was recognized, Cohan refused to join the union as an actor, which hampered his ability to appear in his own productions. Cohan sought a waiver from Equity allowing him to act in any theatrical production. In 1930, Cohan won a law case against the Internal Revenue Service that allowed the deduction, for federal income tax purposes, of his business travel and entertainment expenses, even though he was not able to document them with certainty. This became known as the "Cohan rule" and frequently is cited in tax cases.

Cohan wrote numerous Broadway musicals and straight plays in addition to contributing material to shows written by others—more than 50 in all. Cohan shows included Little Johnny Jones (1904), Forty-five Minutes from Broadway (1905), George Washington, Jr. (1906), The Talk of New York and The Honeymooners (1907), Fifty Miles from Boston and The Yankee Prince (1908), Broadway Jones (1912), Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913), The American Idea, Get Rich Quick Wallingford, The Man Who Owns Broadway, Little Nellie Kelly, The Cohan Revue of 1916 (and 1918; co-written with Irving Berlin), The Tavern (1920), The Rise of Rosie O'Reilly (1923, featuring a 13-year-old Ruby Keeler among the chorus girls), The Song and Dance Man (1923), Molly Malone, The Miracle Man, Hello Broadway, American Born (1925), The Baby Cyclone (1927, one of Spencer Tracy's early breaks), Elmer the Great (1928, co-written with Ring Lardner), and Pigeons and People (1933). At this point in his life, he walked in and out of retirement.

Cohan was called "the greatest single figure the American theatre ever produced – as a player, playwright, actor, composer and producer". On May 1, 1940, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented him with the Congressional Gold Medal for his contributions to World War I morale, in particular with the songs "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Over There". Cohan was the first person in any artistic field selected for this honor, which previously had gone only to military and political leaders, philanthropists, scientists, inventors, and explorers.

In 1959, at the behest of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, a $100,000 bronze statue of Cohan was dedicated in Times Square at Broadway and 46th Street in Manhattan. The 8-foot bronze remains the only statue of an actor on Broadway. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, and into the American Folklore Hall of Fame in 2003. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 6734 Hollywood Boulevard. Cohan was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame on October 15, 2006.

The United States Postal Service issued a 15-cent commemorative stamp honoring Cohan on the anniversary of his centenary, July 3, 1978. The stamp depicts both the older Cohan and his younger self as a dancer, with the tag line "Yankee Doodle Dandy". It was designed by Jim Sharpe. On July 3, 2009, a bronze bust of Cohan, by artist Robert Shure, was unveiled at the corner of Wickenden and Governor Streets in Fox Point, Providence, a few blocks from his birthplace. The city renamed the corner the George M. Cohan Plaza and announced an annual George M. Cohan Award for Excellence in Art & Culture. The first award went to Curt Columbus, the artistic director of Trinity Repertory Company.

Personal life and death

From 1899 to 1907, Cohan was married to Ethel Levey (1881–1955; born Grace Ethelia Fowler), a musical comedy actress and dancer. Levey and Cohan had a daughter, actress Georgette Cohan Souther Rowse (1900–1988). Levey joined the Four Cohans when Josie married, and she starred in Little Johnny Jones and other Cohan works. In 1907, Levey divorced Cohan on grounds of adultery.

In 1908, Cohan married Agnes Mary Nolan (1883–1972), who had been a dancer in his early shows; they remained married until his death. They had two daughters and a son. The eldest was Mary Cohan Ronkin, a cabaret singer in the 1930s, who composed incidental music for her father's play The Tavern. In 1968, Mary supervised musical and lyric revisions for the musical George M! Their second daughter was Helen Cohan Carola, a film actress, who performed on Broadway with her father in Friendship in 1931. Their youngest child was George Michael Cohan, Jr. (1914–2000), who graduated from Georgetown University and served in the entertainment corps during World War II. In the 1950s, George Jr. reinterpreted his father's songs on recordings, in a nightclub act, and in television appearances on the Ed Sullivan and Milton Berle shows. George Jr.'s only child, Michaela Marie Cohan (1943–1999), was the last descendant named Cohan. She graduated with a theater degree from Marywood College in Pennsylvania in 1965. From 1966 to 1968, she served in a civilian Special Services unit in Vietnam and Korea. In 1996, she stood in for her ailing father at the ceremony marking her grandfather's induction into the Musical Theatre Hall of Fame at New York University. Cohan was a devoted baseball fan, regularly attending games of the former New York Giants.

He died of cancer at the age of 64 on November 5, 1942, at his Manhattan apartment on Fifth Avenue, surrounded by family and friends. His funeral was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, and was attended by thousands of people, including five governors of New York, two mayors of New York City and the Postmaster General. The honorary pallbearers included Irving Berlin, Eddie Cantor, Frank Crowninshield, Sol Bloom, Brooks Atkinson, Rube Goldberg, Walter Huston, George Jessel, Connie Mack, Joseph McCarthy, Eugene O'Neill, Sigmund Romberg, Lee Shubert and Fred Waring. Cohan was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City, in a private family mausoleum he had erected a quarter century earlier for his sister and parents.

In popular culture

 James Cagney played Cohan in the 1942 biopic Yankee Doodle Dandy and in the 1955 film The Seven Little Foys. Cagney won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Dandy.
 Mickey Rooney played Cohan in Mr. Broadway, a television special broadcast on May 11, 1957. The same month, Rooney released a 78 RPM record featuring Rooney singing Cohan's best-known songs on the A-side.
 Joel Grey starred on Broadway as Cohan in the musical George M! (1968), which was adapted into a television special in 1970.
 Allan Sherman sang a parody-medley of three Cohan tunes on an early album: "Barry (That'll Be the Baby's Name)"; "H-o-r-o-w-i-t-z"; and "Get on the Garden Freeway" to the tune of "Mary's a Grand Old Name", "Harrigan" and "Give My Regards to Broadway", respectively.
 Chip Deffaa created a one-man show about the life of Cohan called George M. Cohan Tonight!, which first ran Off-Broadway at the Irish Repertory Theatre in 2006 with Jon Peterson as Cohan. Deffaa has written and directed five other plays about Cohan.

Filmography
Cohan acted in the following films:

Gallery

Notes

References

 McCabe, John: George M. Cohan. The Man Who Owned Broadway (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1973)

Further reading
 Cohan, George M.: Twenty Years on Broadway (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1924)
 Gilbert, Douglas: American Vaudeville. Its Life and Times (New York: Dover Publications, 1963)
 Jones, John Bush: Our Musicals, Ourselves. A Social History of the American Musical Theatre (Lebanon, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2003)
 Morehouse, Ward: George M. Cohan. Prince of the American Theater (Philadelphia & New York: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1943)

External links

 
 
 George M. Cohan at Internet off-Broadway Database
 George M. Cohan In America's Theater
 George M. Cohan on musicals101.com
 F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre, "Dancing after retirement: Cohan plays Roosevelt, 1937", New York Daily News, March 20, 2004. 
 Chip Deffaa's extensive George M. Cohan site
 George M. Cohan; PeriodPaper.com c. 1910
 Finding aid for the Edward B. Marks Music Co. Collection on George M. Cohan, 1901–1968 at the Museum of the City of New York
 George M. Cohan recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings

 
1878 births
1942 deaths
19th-century American dramatists and playwrights
19th-century American male actors
19th-century American male writers
19th-century American singers
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
20th-century American male actors
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Actors from Providence, Rhode Island
American male child actors
American male dancers
American male dramatists and playwrights
American male film actors
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American male silent film actors
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American male songwriters
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American people of Irish descent
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Broadway composers and lyricists
Broadway theatre directors
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Burials at Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York)
Catholics from Massachusetts
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George M.
Congressional Gold Medal recipients
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Eccentric dancers
Male actors from Rhode Island
Male musical theatre composers
Musicians from Providence, Rhode Island
People from North Brookfield, Massachusetts
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Members of The Lambs Club
A write-in candidate is a candidate whose name does not appear on the ballot but seeks election by asking voters to cast a vote for the candidate by physically writing in the person's name on the ballot. Depending on electoral law it may be possible to win an election by winning a sufficient number of such write-in votes, which count equally as if the person was formally listed on the ballot.

Writing in a name that is not already on the election ballot is considered a practice of the United States. However, some other jurisdictions have allowed this practice. In the United States, there are variations in laws governing write-in candidates, depending on the office (federal or local) and whether the election is a primary election or the general election; general practice is an empty field close by annotated to explain its purpose on the ballot if it applies. In five U.S. states there are no elections to which it can apply, under their present laws. Election laws are enacted by each state and in the District of Columbia, to apply to their voters.

How to write in the name
Some U.S. states and local jurisdictions allow a voter to affix a sticker, with the write-in candidate's name, to the ballot in lieu of actually writing in the candidate's name.

Write-in candidacies are sometimes a result of a candidate being legally or procedurally ineligible to run under their own name or party; write-in candidacies may be permitted where term limits bar an incumbent candidate from being officially nominated for, or being listed on the ballot for, re-election. They are also typically used when a candidate, often an incumbent has lost a primary election but still wishes to contest the general election.

In some cases, write-in campaigns have been organized to support a candidate who is not personally involved in running; this may be a form of draft campaign.

Write-in candidates may have to register as candidates
Write-in candidates have won elections on rare occasions. Also, write-in votes are sometimes cast for ineligible people or fictional characters.

Some jurisdictions require write-in candidates be registered as official candidates before the election. This is standard in elections with a large pool of potential candidates, as there may be multiple candidates with the same name that could be written in.

The spoiler effect
In some cases, the number of write-in votes cast in an election is greater than the entire margin of victory, suggesting that the write-ins may have been sufficient to tip the balance and change the outcome of the election by creating a spoiler effect.

Primary elections in the United States
Many U.S. states and municipalities allow for write-in votes in a partisan primary election where no candidate is listed on the ballot to have the same functional effect as nominating petitions: for example, if there are no Reform Party members on the ballot for state general assembly and a candidate receives more than 200 write-in votes when the primary election is held (or the other number of signatures that were required for ballot access), the candidate will be placed on the ballot on that ballot line for the general election. In most places, this provision is in place for non-partisan elections as well.

Write-in option in a referendum
A write-in option may occasionally be available in a multiple-choice referendum; for example in the January 1982 Guamanian status referendum.

Contrast from a blank ballot election system
The term "write-in candidate" is used in elections in which names of candidates or parties are preprinted on a paper ballot or displayed on an electronic voting machine. The term is not generally used in elections in which all ballots are blank and thus all voters must write in the names of their preferred candidates. Blank ballot election systems reduce the cost of printing the ballots, but increase the complexity of casting and counting votes. Such systems are used in Japan, and used in the past in the French Second Republic, and in elections in the Philippines from World War 2 until the 2010 general election. Some systems use a semi-blank ballot, such as Finland, where the voter must fill in a candidate's given number or letter from a separate ballot, but where there is a clear-cut arrangement with a circle or box with a description of how to vote for a given candidate. Blank-ballot systems typically require candidates to be nominated in advance.

United States

The requirements to appear on the general election ballot as an independent candidate or to have write-in votes counted vary by state and by political office sought.

Forty-one states and the District of Columbia allow write-in votes on their ballots, including for president; Arkansas, New Mexico and South Carolina allow write-in candidates for some offices but not for president; Mississippi allows write-in votes only to substitute a candidate listed on the ballot who was removed, withdrew or died; Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, Oklahoma and South Dakota do not allow any write-in votes. Most of the jurisdictions allowing write-in votes require that the write-in candidates register by a certain date for their votes to be counted. Typically this registration consists only of a declaration of candidacy, but some states also require signatures of a certain number of voters, additional paperwork or fees. The deadline to register as a write-in candidate is usually later than to petition to be listed on the ballot.

2020 presidential general election 

Notes

U.S. Senate

Republican William Knowland was elected in 1946 to the U.S. Senate from California, for a two-month term. The special election for the two-month term featured a November ballot with no names printed on it, and all candidates in that special election were write-in candidates.
Democrat Strom Thurmond was elected in 1954 to the United States Senate in South Carolina as a write-in candidate, after state Democratic leaders had blocked him from receiving the party's nomination.
In 2010 incumbent Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski lost the Republican primary to Joe Miller. Following her defeat she ran in the general election as a write-in candidate. Murkowski had filed, and won, a lawsuit requiring election officials to have the list of names of write-in candidates distributed at the polls, and subsequently won the election with a wide enough margin over both Miller, and Democratic Party candidate Scott T. McAdams, to make moot the write-in ballots that had been challenged by Miller.
In 2020, Chris Janicek won the Democratic Senatorial nomination, but during the campaign he sent out sexually inappropriate text messages to staffers causing the Nebraska Democratic Party to withdraw its support from him. The Nebraska Democratic Party attempted to replace Janicek with Alisha Shelton, but Janicek refused to drop out preventing the replacement. Preston Love Jr. later announced his intention to run a write-in senatorial campaign and received the support of the Nebraska Democratic Party, making him the first black person to receive the support of a major party for United States Senate in Nebraska.

U.S. House of Representatives
In 1918, Peter F. Tague was elected to the U.S. House as a write-in independent Democrat, defeating the Democratic nominee, John F. Fitzgerald.
In 1930 Republican Charles F. Curry, Jr. was elected to the House as a write-in from Sacramento, California. His father, Congressman Charles F. Curry Sr., would have been listed on the ballot unopposed but, due to his untimely death, his name was removed and no candidate's name was listed on the ballot.
In 1958, Democrat Dale Alford was elected as a write-in candidate to the United States House of Representatives in Arkansas. As member of the Little Rock school board, Alford launched his write-in campaign a week before the election because the incumbent, Brooks Hays, was involved in the incident in which president Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce racial integration at Little Rock Central High School. Racial integration was unpopular at the time, and Alford won by approximately 1,200 votes, a 2% margin.
In 1964 Democrat Gale Schisler was nominated for Congress in Illinois as a write-in candidate when no Democrat filed to run in the primary election. He defeated incumbent Robert McLoskey in the November General Election.
In November 1980, Republican Joe Skeen was elected to Congress in New Mexico as a write-in candidate, because of a spoiler candidate who also happened to be a write-in. No Republican had filed to run against the incumbent Democrat, Harold L. Runnels, before the close of filing. Runnels died on August 5, 1980, and the Democrats requested a special primary to pick a replacement candidate. The New Mexico Secretary of State allowed the Democrats to have a special primary, but did not allow the Republicans to have a special primary, because they had already gone with no candidate. So Skeen ran as a write-in candidate. After Runnels' widow lost the Democratic special primary, she launched her own write-in candidacy, which split the Democratic vote, taking enough votes from the Democratic nominee to give the election to the Republican, Skeen, who won with a 38% plurality.
Ron Packard of California finished in second place in the 18-candidate Republican primary to replace the retiring Clair Burgener. Packard lost the primary by 92 votes in 1982, and then mounted a write-in campaign as an independent. He won the election with a 37% plurality against both a Republican and a Democratic candidate. Following the elections, he re-aligned himself as a Republican.
Democrat Charlie Wilson was the endorsed candidate of the Democratic Party for Ohio's 6th congressional district in Ohio to replace Ted Strickland in 2006. Strickland was running for Governor, and had to give up his congressional seat. Wilson, though, did not qualify for the ballot because only 46 of the 96 signatures on his candidacy petition were deemed valid, while 50 valid signatures were required for ballot placement. The Democratic Party continued to support Wilson, and an expensive primary campaign ensued – over $1 million was spent by both parties. Wilson overwhelmingly won the Democratic primary as a write-in candidate on May 2, 2006 against two Democratic candidates whose names were on the ballot, with Wilson collecting 44,367 votes, 67% of the Democratic votes cast. Wilson faced Republican Chuck Blasdel in the general election on November 7, 2006, and won, receiving 61% of the votes.
Democrat Dave Loebsack entered the 2006 Democratic primary in Iowa's second congressional district as a write-in candidate after failing to get the required number of signatures. He won the primary and in the general election he defeated 15-term incumbent Jim Leach by a 51% to 49% margin.
Jerry McNerney ran as a write-in candidate in the March 2004 Democratic Primary in California's 11th congressional district. He received 1,667 votes (3% of the votes cast), and, having no opposition (no candidates were listed on the Democratic primary ballot), won the primary. Although he lost the November 2004 general election to Republican Richard Pombo, McNerney ran again in 2006 (as a candidate listed on the ballot) and won the Democratic Primary in June, and then the rematch against Pombo in November.
Shelley Sekula-Gibbs failed as a write-in candidate in the November 7, 2006 election to represent the 22nd Texas congressional district in the 110th Congress (for the full term commencing January 3, 2007). The seat had been vacant since June 9, 2006, due to the resignation of the then representative Tom DeLay. Therefore, on the same ballot, there were two races: one for the 110th Congress, as well as a race for the unexpired portion of the term during the 109th Congress (until January 3, 2007). Sekula-Gibbs won the race for the unexpired portion of the term during the 109th Congress as a candidate listed on the ballot. She could not be listed on the ballot for the full term because Texas law did not allow a replacement candidate to be listed on the ballot after the winner of the primary (Tom DeLay) has resigned.
Peter Welch, a Democrat representing Vermont's sole congressional district, became both the Democratic and Republican nominee for the House when he ran for re-election in 2008 and 2016. Because the Republicans did not field any candidate on the primary ballot in those elections, Welch won enough write-in votes to win the Republican nomination.

State legislatures
Several members of the Alaska House of Representatives were elected as write-in candidates during the 1960s and 1970s, particularly from rural districts in the northern and western portions of the state. Factors in play at the time include the newness of Alaska as a state and the previous absence of electoral politics in many of the rural communities, creating an environment which made it hard to attract candidates to file for office during the official filing period. Most of the areas in question were largely populated by Alaska natives, who held little political power in Alaska at the time. This only began to change following the formation of the Alaska Federation of Natives and the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Known examples of successful write-in candidates include Kenneth A. Garrison and Father Segundo Llorente (1960), Frank R. Ferguson (1972), James H. "Jimmy" Huntington (1974), and Nels A. Anderson, Jr. (1976). The incumbent in Llorente's election, Axel C. Johnson, ran for re-election as a write-in candidate after failing to formally file his candidacy paperwork. Johnson and Llorente, as write-in candidates, both outpolled the one candidate who did appear on the ballot. Ferguson and Anderson were both incumbents who launched their write-in campaigns after being defeated in the primary election. Anderson's main opponent, Joseph McGill, had himself won election to the House in 1970 against a write-in candidate by only 5 votes.
Carl Hawkinson of Galesburg, Illinois won the Republican primary for the Illinois Senate from Illinois's 47th District in 1986 as a write-in candidate. He went on to be elected in the general election and served until 2003. Hawkinson defeated another write-in, David Leitch, in the primary. Incumbent State Senator Prescott Bloom died in a home fire after the filing date for the primary had passed.
 Arizona state senator Don Shooter won the 2010 primary as a write-in and went on to win the general election.
After failing to receive the Republican Party's 1990 Wilson Pakula nomination, incumbent and registered Conservative New York State Senator Serphin Maltese won the party's nomination as a write-in candidate.
Charlotte Burks won as a Democratic write-in candidate for the Tennessee Senate seat left vacant when the incumbent, her husband Tommy, was assassinated by his opponent, Byron Looper, two weeks before the elections of November 2, 1998. The assassin was the only name on the ballot, so Charlotte ran as a write-in candidate.
Winnie Brinks was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in 2012 after a series of unusual events. In May of that year, State Representative Roy Schmidt – who had previously filed to run for re-election as a Democrat – withdrew from the Democratic primary and re-filed as a Republican. A friend of Schmidt's nephew filed to run as a Democrat, but withdrew two days later amid anger among local Democrats. This left Democrats without a candidate. Brinks ran as a write-in to be the Democratic nominee. She won the primary and was listed on the ballot in the general election, which she also won. Coincidentally, the general election also saw a write-in candidate, Bing Goei, receive significant support.
Scott Wagner was elected as an anti-establishment Republican write-in candidate to the Pennsylvania Senate in a March 2014 special election over endorsed Republican nominee Ron Miller and Democrat Linda Small.
Nick Freitas was re-elected as a write-in candidate after missing a filing deadline to appear on the ballot in the Virginia House of Delegates.

Local government
 Angela Allen was elected Mayor of Tar Heel, North Carolina (population 115) as a write-in candidate in 2003.
 Julia Allen of Readington, New Jersey won a write-in campaign in the November 2005 elections for the Township Committee, after a candidate accused of corruption had won the primary.
 Tom Ammiano, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, entered the race for Mayor of San Francisco as a write-in candidate two weeks before the 1999 general election. He received 25% of the vote, coming in second place and forcing incumbent Mayor Willie Brown into a runoff election, which Brown won by margin of 59% to 40%. In 2001, the campaign was immortalized in the award-winning documentary film See How They Run.
 John R. Brinkley ran as a write-in candidate for governor of Kansas in 1930. He was motivated at least in part by the state's revocation of his medical license and attempts to shut down his clinic, where he performed alternative medical procedures including transplantation of goat glands into humans. He won 29.5% of the vote in a three-way race. Brinkley's medical and political career are documented in Pope Brock's book Charlatan.
 Mike Duggan filed petition to run for mayor of Detroit in 2013; however, following a court challenge, Duggan's name was removed from the ballot. Duggan then campaigned as a write-in in the August 2013 primary, with the intent of being one of the top two vote-getters and thus advancing to the general election in November. Duggan received the highest number of votes in the primary, and advanced to the runoff in November. He eventually defeated challenger Sheriff Benny Napoleon and became the Mayor of Detroit.
 Donna Frye ran as a write-in candidate for Mayor of San Diego in 2004. A controversy erupted when several thousand votes for her were not counted because the voters had failed to fill in the bubble next to the write-in line. Had those votes been counted, she would have won the election.
 Michael Jarjura was re-elected Mayor of Waterbury, Connecticut in 2005 as a write-in candidate after losing the Democratic party primary to Karen Mulcahy, who used to serve as Waterbury's tax collector before Jarjura fired her in 2004 "for what he claimed was her rude and abusive conduct toward citizens". After spending $100,000 on a general elections write-in campaign, Jarjura received 7,907 votes, enough for a plurality of 39%.
 James Maher won the mayorship of Baxter Estates, New York on March 15, 2005 as a write-in candidate with 29 votes. Being the only one on the ballot, the incumbent mayor, James Neville, did not campaign, as he did not realize that there was a write-in campaign going on. Neville received only 13 votes.
 Beverly O'Neil won a third term as Mayor of Long Beach, California as a write-in candidate in 2002. The Long Beach City City Charter has a term limit amendment that says a candidate cannot be on the ballot after two full terms, but does not prevent the person from running as a write-in candidate. She finished first in a seven-candidate primary, but did not receive more than 50% of the vote, forcing a runoff contest. In the runoff, still restricted from the ballot, she got roughly 47% of the vote in a three-way election that included a second write-in candidate.
 Michael Sessions, an 18-year-old high school senior, won as a write-in candidate for Mayor of Hillsdale, Michigan in 2005. He was too young to qualify for the ballot.
 In 2021, Byron Brown, the incumbent mayor of Buffalo, New York, defeated Democratic challenger India Walton, by running a successful write-in campaign after losing the Democratic primary to Walton.
 In Galesburg, Illinois, an error by the Galesburg Election Commission in late 2010 gave city council candidate Chuck Reynolds the wrong number of signatures he required to be on the ballot for the April 2011 city council election, resulting in his removal from the ballot when challenged by incumbent Russell Fleming. Reynolds ran as a write-in vote in the April 2011 election, and lost by 9 votes.
 Anthony A. Williams, then incumbent Mayor of Washington, D.C., was forced to run as a write-in candidate in the 2002 Democratic primary, because he had too many invalid signatures for his petition. He won the Democratic primary, and went on to win re-election.
 In the November 8, 2011, election for Commonwealth's Attorney of Richmond County, Virginia, 16-year incumbent Wayne Emery was certified the winner as a write-in candidate over challenger James Monroe by a margin of 53 votes (2.4%) out of 2,230 votes cast, after his petitions were challenged and his name was removed from the ballot.
 In the August 4, 2020, primary election of Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, Monica Ross-Williams, a then Ypsilanti Township Trustee, received 3,478 write-in votes for Ypsilanti Township Clerk, for the highest number of write-in votes in any election in Washtenaw County, Michigan history.
 In the 1997 election for Mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska, Stubbs the Cat won over the two human candidates. He was re-elected every mayoral election thereafter, and served until his death on July 2, 2017.
 In 2011, in Pacific, Washington, Marine veteran Cy Sun ousted incumbent mayor Rich Hildreth as a write-in candidate, using a comprehensive ground game in the small town to convince locals to support him over Hildreth, whom he accused of corruption. After the election, the county elections office reported that a sufficient number of write-ins votes had made it possible that a write-in could win, and after a count of the write-ins, Sun beat Hildreth by 464 to 401. Sun's mayorship was plagued by political and physical challenges, and Sun would be recalled in 2013.
 Eau Claire County, Wisconsin sheriff Ron Cramer, formerly a sheriff's deputy, won election as Eau Claire County's 47th sheriff, defeating disgraced 10-year incumbent sheriff Richard M. Hewitt in a write-in campaign hastily organized just weeks before the election in 1996. He has handily won reelection every 4 years since, usually running unopposed.
 Lynda Neuwirth defeated the lone candidate on the ballot, Joseph DiPasquale, for the Ellicottville, New York village justice position on March 19, 2019; Neuwirth received three votes to DiPasquale's two. Neuwirth was ousted after only two months in the position, as voters had approved a referendum abolishing the court the previous November; when the abolition was delayed two months, Neuwirth was not allowed to retain her seat and was replaced by a justice from the surrounding town, which will absorb the village court's jurisdiction.

Other elections
Aaron Schock was elected to the District 150 School Board in Peoria, Illinois in 2001 by a write-in vote, after his petitions were challenged and his name was removed from the ballot. He defeated the incumbent by over 2,000 votes, approximately 6,400 to 4,300 votes. He went on to serve in the Illinois House of Representatives, and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2008. He was later forced to resign in an expenses scandal.
John Adams became an Orange County, California judge in November 2002 after running along with 10 other write-in candidates in the primaries on March 5, 2002 against incumbent Judge Ronald Kline. After the filing deadline in which no candidate filed to run against Kline, a computer hacker discovered that Judge Kline had child pornography on his home computer. Kline got less than 50% of the vote in the primaries, requiring a runoff between him and write-in candidate John Adams (who actually received more votes than Kline). After some legal maneuvers, Kline's name was removed from the general elections, leaving the general election a runoff between Adams and Gay Sandoval, who was the second highest write-in vote getter. Charges against Kline were eventually thrown out.
On September 15, 2009, four write-in candidates in the Independence Party primaries for various offices in Putnam County, New York defeated their on-ballot opponents.
In a May 2011 school board election for the Bentley School Board in Michigan, Lisa Osborn ran as a write-in candidate and needed just one vote to win a seat. However, she did not receive any votes, even from herself. She explained herself by saying that she was at her son's baseball game and did not have time to go to the polls.

California's Proposition 14 impact on write-in candidates
In 2010, California voters passed Proposition 14 which set up a new election system for the United States Senate, United States House of Representatives, all statewide offices (governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state treasurer, state controller, attorney general, insurance commissioner, and superintendent of public instruction), California Board of Equalization, and for the California State Legislature. In the system set up by Proposition 14, there are two rounds of voting, and the top two vote-getters for each race in the first round (the primary, held in June 2004 – 2018 and March 2020-present) advance to a second round (the general election, held in November). Proposition 14 specifically prohibits write-in candidates in the second round, and this prohibition was upheld in a court challenge. Another court challenge to the prohibition on write-in candidates in the second round was filed in July 2014.

Although Proposition 14 prohibits write-in candidates in the second round of voting, it has made it easier for write-in candidates in the first round to advance to the second round. This generally happens in elections where only one candidate is listed on the ballot. Since in each race the top two vote-getters from the first round are guaranteed to advance to the second round, if only one candidate is listed on the ballot, a write-in candidate can easily advance to the second round, as the write-in candidate would only have to compete with other write-in candidates for the 2nd spot, not with any listed candidates. In some jungle primary systems, if the winner in the first round wins by more than 50% of the vote, then the second (runoff) round gets cancelled, but in the system set up by Proposition 14, a second (runoff) round is required regardless of the percent of the vote that the winner of the first round received. Proposition 14 therefore guarantees that if only one candidate is listed on the ballot in the first round, a write-in candidate running against the one listed candidate can earn a spot for the second round with as little as one vote.

The first election in which Proposition 14 went into effect was the 2012 elections.

Another impact of Proposition 14 on write-in candidates is that since the passage of Proposition 14, candidates who are not affiliated with any party can be listed on the ballot for election to offices affected by Proposition 14. Prior to passage of Proposition 14, candidates who were not affiliated with any party, could not run in any party primaries, and were required to run in the general election as write-in candidates.

Other countries

With a few exceptions, the practice of recognizing write-in candidates is typically viewed internationally as an American tradition.

A bizarre incident involving a fictitious write-in candidacy occurred in the small town of Picoazá, Ecuador in 1967. A company ran a series of campaign-themed advertisements for a foot powder called Pulvapies. Some of the slogans used included "Vote for any candidate, but if you want well-being and hygiene, vote for Pulvapies", and "For Mayor: Honorable Pulvapies". The foot powder Pulvapies ended up receiving the most votes in the election.
In Brazil, until the introduction of electronic voting in 1994, the ballot had no names written for legislative candidates, so many voters would protest by voting on fictional characters or religious figures. In a famous case, the São Paulo city zoo rhinoceros Cacareco got around 100,000 votes in the 1959 elections for the municipal council, more than any candidate. However, those votes were not considered because Brazilian law stipulates that a candidate must be affiliated to a political party to take office.
 Until 2013, write-in candidates were permitted at municipal elections in France for councils of communes with a population of less than 2500.
 Elections in Sweden are open list, with voters placing into the ballot box an envelope containing their choice of either a ballot preprinted with the name of a registered party or else a blank ballot on which they write the name of a party (registered or unregistered) and optionally that of a candidate. A person must consent to being a candidate listed on a preprinted ballot, but there was no such obligation for write-in names until the 2018 general election.  In the 2006 municipal elections, the Sweden Democrats (SD) won seats on several councils where they had no nominee or preprinted ballots; most SD voters wrote the party name but no candidate name. The seats were filled by the name most often written, if any, and left empty if no voter wrote in a name. One example was Vårgårda Municipality, where only three of 143 SD voters wrote in names, of which two were for an ineligible non-resident; the winner resigned his seat as he opposed the SD and his sole vote was cast by his father as a joke. In 2010 one Jimmy Åkesson was elected to Staffanstorp Municipality council after a single SD voter wrote his name. The voter apparently intended SD leader Jimmie Åkesson, not resident in Staffanstorp.
 In elections in Austria, writing on a ballot paper does not invalidate a vote provided the voter's preference is clear. In the 1990 legislative election the unpopular SPÖ, worried that voters would not select it on the party-list ballot, advised them to write in the name of Franz Vranitzky, its popular leader. Such ballots would be interpreted as SPÖ votes.

Protest
Mad magazine satirically called to vote for Alfred E. Neuman as a write-in candidate for every U.S. presidential election from 1960 to 1980 with slogans like "You could do worse–and you already have" and "There are Bigger Idiots running for office!".
In the 1980 U.S. presidential election, guitarist Joe Walsh ran a mock write-in campaign, promising to make his song "Life's Been Good" the new national anthem if he won, and running on a platform of "Free Gas for Everyone." Though Walsh (then aged 33) was not old enough to actually assume the office, he wanted to raise public awareness of the election. (In 1992, Walsh purportedly ran for vice-president, in his song "Vote For Me", a track on his album Songs for a Dying Planet, which was released that year.)
During the 2000 United States Congress Elections, film-maker Michael Moore led a campaign for voters to submit a ficus tree as a write-in candidate. This campaign was replicated across the country and was recounted in an episode of The Awful Truth.
In 2012, a campaign was waged to write in Charles Darwin against Georgia congressman Paul Broun (who was running unopposed) after Broun "called evolution and other areas of science 'lies straight from the pit of hell.' " Darwin received approximately 4,000 votes. However, because Darwin was not registered as an official candidate (some states require even write-ins to be pre-registered), the Georgia Secretary of State did not tabulate those votes.
In 2016, several grassroots campaigns to elect Bernie Sanders President as a write-in candidate were established on social media in the run-up to the United States presidential election. Though Sanders continued to campaign for Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton, supporters pointed to alleged DNC bias in the Democratic Party's presidential primaries against Sanders, and Clinton's email scandal, and continued to support him. Both Clinton and Donald Trump would have had to win less than the required 270 electoral college votes for Sanders to have denied either candidate the presidency, and for the election to be passed to the House of Representatives – thus the initial write-in campaign around Vermont, offering only three college votes, was not successful, but Sanders did receive almost six percent of the vote there. The campaign expanded to include all 12 eligible states (one of which listed Sanders as an official write-in candidate), and relied on states such as California, with a high electoral college vote count and large support for Sanders, to be successful in denying both Trump and Clinton.
 In Sweden, all handwritten votes are scanned by computer and the results published online, although only votes for valid parties count towards determining successful candidates. In the 2010 general election, ineffective votes included 120 for Donald Duck and 2 for "myself", as well as several computer code snippets apparently intended as code injection attacks aimed at either the program which tallied the votes or the browsers of users who accessed the results website.
 In the 2018 Egyptian presidential election, owing to a large number of candidates being arrested or barred from running, Egyptian football star Mohamed Salah received over a million votes, as many Egyptians cancelled out the names of both candidates and wrote his instead. This was higher than the number of votes received by the second place candidate, Moussa Mostafa Moussa. Write-in votes are not deemed valid in Egypt.

See also

None of the above
None of these candidates - Nevada's implementation of the "None of the above" voting option

Notes

References

Elections in the United States
Politics of the United States The 2014 United States Senate election in Alabama took place on November 4, 2014, to elect a member of the United States Senate for Alabama.

Incumbent Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, who served in the position since 1997, ran for re-election to a fourth term in office. As the Democrats did not field a candidate, he was the only candidate to file before the deadline and was therefore unopposed in the Republican primary election and only faced write-in opposition in the general election.

Sessions was re-elected with 97.25% of the vote. The remaining votes were write-ins.

As of 2021, this, along with the concurrent  gubernatorial election, is the last time Jefferson County has voted Republican in any statewide election.

Republican

Candidates

Declared
 Jeff Sessions, incumbent U.S. Senator since 1997

Independents
An independent candidate would have been able to challenge Sessions if at least 44,828 signatures had been submitted by June 3, 2014. None did so.

General election

Candidates

On ballot
 Jeff Sessions (Republican), incumbent U.S. Senator

Write-in
 Victor Sanchez Williams (Democratic), attorney

Fundraising

Predictions

Polling

Results

Aftermath
Sessions did not complete this term, which ran through January 3, 2021; he resigned on February 9, 2017, to become Attorney General under the Trump administration. This triggered the interim appointment of Luther Strange to fill the vacancy until Democrat Doug Jones won a special election later that year. On November 7, 2019, Sessions announced that he would stand for this US Senate seat again in 2020 when it was due for its regularly-scheduled election, though he was defeated in the runoff primary by football coach Tommy Tuberville, who would go onto win the general election.

See also
 2014 Alabama elections

 2014 United States Senate elections
 2014 United States elections

References

External links
U.S. Senate elections in Alabama, 2014 at Ballotpedia
Campaign contributions at OpenSecrets.org
Jeff Sessions for U.S. Senate

2014
Alabama
2014 Alabama elections
Single-candidate elections