[Beagle8U]

“Voted for Specter because I think he will be easier to beat than Sleezebag Sestak, but then wrote in GOP Conservatives in all the downticket contests.”

If your down ticket ‘write-ins’ are registered Republicans, it would be a split ticket and thrown out in most states.

Does PA allow split tickets in a primary??

[rightwingintelligentsia]

The best I know PA is a closed primary.

I haven’t voted yet but I don’t think there will be a much of a line at the polls when I get there after work. Outside of PA-12 (which I’m not in) there isn’t too much of a contest on the Republican side.

[Vigilanteman]

Pennsylvania is closed primary, but allows cross registration and write-in voting. School board candidates, in particular, typically register in both primaries and seek to win automatic election in low-turnout primaries because they have assured themselves all available ballot positions.

Last year, this is exactly what the teacher's union did in our district to deny the citizen's a choice in the general election. They made one miscalculation, however-- one of their choices was a federal employee later deemed ineligible for the office. The local RAT machine, of course, put another rubberstamp on the ballot for November but the GOP balked and put on their next highest vote getter who was from the anti-union slate. He won the seat in November but so, unfortunately, did the three uncontested union rubberstamps.

Back in 2006, Ed Rendell was so unpopular in our county that Lynn Swann got several hundred write-in votes for the Democrat primary even though he was the GOP candidate. When the results were reported, the local RAT machine actually whined that such voters were telegraphing such hostility to the Rendell administration that we might miss out on our share of pork.

So it is actually a fairly common technique to give the middle finger to Harrisburg and Washington.