whats a total write in?

[Platapus]

While different states have different rules, in Virginia, write-in votes have almost no chance of ever passing.

In Virginia, each write-in vote has to be an exact match in order to be counted together.

Lee Oswald
Lee H Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald
Mr. Oswald
LH Oswald
L. H. Oswald

All count as separate votes, each with one vote. If a candidate is seriously considering being a write-in candidate, they really need to advertise so that everyone knows exactly how to write in the vote.

As an election officer, I cringed when I heard that Alaska is considering evaluating "voter intent".

This is so wrong. It is the duty of the election officials to count the valid ballots. If a ballot is not valid, it is not valid. Introducing voter intent is a sloppy way to introduce bias and subjectivity into what should be a binary decision -- the ballot is valid or it is not.