write-in votes

I just sent this message to the New York state board of elections at info@elections.state.ny.us: Your web site has nothing about election machines (other than those stupid new contraptions in certain counties) and write-in votes. I opened some of those annoying PDF files but they are not searchable. Are you trying to hide info? I want to write-in a vote and would like to know the current procedure before election day. How about implementing early voting? Many states already have it. ______________________________________________ I am pretty dissatisfied with my choices for offices other than president. I am settling for Obama, since Nader is not likely to win and Obama is a fascinating possibility. I want to vote for myself for the other offices. Not voting for anyone on the ballot might be interpreted as an accidental omission. I want them to know that the candidates were unacceptable. I have cast a write-in vote for myself a couple of times previously but who knows what the procedure is now. The one time I checked after votes had been counted, mine had not been counted. For several years I have thought that a person could be elected without jumping through the hoops and over the obstacles set by the two major parties. Getting on the ballot is EXTREMELY difficult without a party designation. http://www.elections.state.ny.us/RunningOffice.html "The current political parties are the Republican, Democratic, Independence, Conservative, and Working Families parties." There is no indication as to how these parties were designated. I suppose that they achieved a certain number or percent of votes in previous elections. Especially for local office, it should be relatively easy to get elected as long as write-in votes are counted. The web makes it so. Just create a web site, use youtube.com and promote your candidacy. That's the point that almost everyone misses about using the web for elections. Spending very little money, candidates can by-pass the two major parties and appeal directly to the voters. Pundits thought that former Vermont governor Howard Dean was really clever in his use of the web when he ran in the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries. All he did was put direct mail functions online. Big deal. Even Barack Obama has done little more. Once people wake up and seize the initiative and go directly to the voters, we can all become write-in candidates. Now that's democratic.