Tom Delay “unstuck” himself today and issued a statement whereby he removed himself from the ballot in Texas. As The Washington Post noted,

DeLay was forced to act after Republicans lost several court fights to remove his name from the ballot in the Houston-area district and replace him with a GOP-chosen nominee. Republicans ended their legal battles Monday when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused to hear their case, letting the appeals court decision stand.

This means that the ballot will have no Republican candidate listed. Intead, the party is expected to rally behind a write-in candidate. Under Texas law, a write-in must declare candidacy and pay a fee or submit required signatures by Aug. 29. The Post noted that

Four men have been elected to Congress as write-in candidates. In 1954, Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina won the state’s Democratic nomination using fliers showing voters how and where to write his name More recently, in May, Charlie Wilson, an Ohio legislator, won the Democratic primary nomination for the House through a write-in campaign heavily financed by his party.

For those of you who want extra credit, Chapter 146 of the Texas Election Code covers the eligibility of write-in candidates. For the counting rules, you can look to Chapter 65 of the Election Code, which reads:

§ 65.008. TALLYING WRITE-IN VOTES. (a) In an election in which write-in voting is permitted, the name of a write-in candidate shall be entered on the tally list and votes for that candidate shall be tallied in the same manner as votes for a candidate whose name appears on the ballot. (b) A write-in vote may not be counted if a sticker containing a candidate’s name is affixed to the ballot by the voter.