Write-ins challenge both humans and the robot overlord vote-tabulators.“Some people don’t understand write-ins,” Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Lisa Lewis said.On some races, voters find a bubble on the left on the ballot, with a blank where a candidate’s name can be written.There are write-in blanks this year, for example, in the races for U.S. senator, governor and chief financial officer. Two important rules, though: Handwritten votes count only if the name you write is the name of a qualified write-in candidate. Also, be sure to fill in the write-in bubble.The seven votes for ever-popular Mickey Mouse in the 2018 primary for Volusia County council member at-large were always doomed to fail. Likewise, the 100-plus voters who filled in the oval for a write-in vote but didn’t write in a name had little effect. Ben Franklin and Evel Knievel never had a chance in that primary, not least because they are dead. Pam Bondi, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush and Elon Musk — whose names were also written in on actual Volusia County ballots — are presumably a little busy. “Republican” and “At Large” would be odd names for actual humans. And “no-one,” “neither,” “anybody else,” “none” and “no vote” are all votes, just ineffective ones.
There was a legitimate write-in candidate in the County Council at-large primary, who registered as a candidate before the election: John Casaburro. A total of 143 voters — among the 104,604 who cast ballots in the at-large race, including 616 write-ins — managed to write in Casaburro’s name and spell it close enough to correctly for their votes to count. “The most I’ve ever seen for a write-in candidate in Volusia,” Lewis said.
Read More
English