John Kasich announced yesterday that he had written-in John McCain for president in the critically important state of Ohio in this year’s presidential election.

You may cynically consider this to be a selfish, preening, meaningless move designed to draw attention to the Governor-turned failed presidential candidate, and according to a new report, you’d be pretty spot-on.

The Associated Press reports that if you decide to join Kasich and write-in the name of John McCain (or, just as meaningfully “Mickey Mouse”) your ballot, literally, won’t count.

The names of write-in candidates often end up being lumped into a single category, unless a write-in hopeful has alerted state election officials or has filled out needed paperwork ahead of time to ensure their ballots are tabulated separately.

In Massachusetts and 33 other states, write-in presidential candidate must fill out paperwork before an election to ensure their ballots are tallied. In a handful of states, write-in voting for presidential candidates is simply not allowed. The remaining states do not require presidential write-in candidates to file special paperwork before the election.

“We generally encourage write-in candidates to notify us they are going to run a write-in campaign because then we’ll notify the clerks to specifically count them,” said Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin. “If people randomly choose to write in a name, it’ll be counted, but it could be counted as ‘other.'”

One added hiccup this election could be voters who write in the name of Trump’s GOP running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the New Hampshire Republican locked in a tight re-election fight with Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, has said she’ll do that.

So what to make of Kasich’s vote for McCain? According to Cleveland.com, Kasich, the leader of the Ohio Republican Party and the Chief Executive of the Buckeye state knew his vote was meaningless.

Chris Schrimpf, the governor’s political spokesman, confirmed the write-in vote to cleveland.com and said Kasich voted straight-ticket Republican on the rest of his ballot. Schrimpf added that Kasich was comfortable picking McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee for president, over Trump, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Libertarian Gary Johnson, a former Republican on the ballot as a nonpartisan candidate.

The vote essentially is a symbolic gesture. Because McCain is not among the 18 certified write-in candidates in Ohio, Kasich’s vote for president will not count.

But the preening GOP also-ran made sure the media knew about his meaningless gesture so that the irrelevant moderate got some more Google hits in the news cycle one week before the presidential election he failed to be a part of.

John Kasich wanted to lead America as our head of state and as the leader of the Executive Branch. He wanted to show how he would be able to stand up to America’s enemies (foreign and domestic) and face-off against his political adversaries in Congress. He attempted to display his ability to face tough moral issues and reach the difficult decisions that – although imperfect – would still benefit the American people for ourselves and our posterity.

The American people rejected him. His churlish, vacuous and self-centered vote demonstrates exactly why.

Noted.