“Nathan Johnson” was only meant to be a placeholder for Evan McMullin’s eventual running mate.
But the conservative running an independent, anti-Donald Trump campaign for president appears to be stuck with the stand-in candidate, whose name is listed as his running mate in all nine states where he has qualified for the ballot so far, Politico reported Wednesday.
According to that report, McMullin’s campaign has said they won’t release any information about Johnson, saying he’s only holding the spot for the candidate’s running mate. But elections officials in eight of the states where McMullin’s name is on the ballot told Politico the deadline has passed for the campaign to change his running mate’s name. So, “Nathan Johnson” will appear on the ballot.
“We thought it would be inappropriate to just grab the first person that walked off the street instead of vetting them, which is what we’re doing. We will have a V.P. nomination,” Rick Wilson, an adviser to McMullin, told the site. “Nathan is a guy who’s on the ballot right now with the full understanding that this is going to swap out in the immediate future.”
In Louisiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Arkansas, Idaho, Utah, Virginia and South Carolina, election officials said “Nathan Johnson” will have to remain on ballot.
“It cannot be changed. We already have machines that are complete,” Meg Casper, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana secretary of state, told the outlet.
Mark Thomas, Utah’s director of elections, told Politico that clerks are already printing out ballots, “so there is no way to change it.”
McMullin still has until Sept. 9 to change the name of his running mate in Colorado.
