The right to vote should be a serious matter. Part of the right to vote, and the right to participate in elections, demands that write-in candidates for office be permitted and that the votes for them count.
That being said, reasonable rules and regulations ought to apply for write-in candidates. Toledo currently requires that votes for any write-in candidate for city office be counted if the candidate meets the requirements for holding office. The city is out of whack with state law on the same subject. The state requires no fees of write-in candidates — a simple registration as a candidate suffices. That is not an onerous burden. A voter could still write in Mickey Mouse or perhaps the name of a more reasonable candidate (no offense to Mickey, he makes some good choices that put other politicians to shame).
Any vote for a nonregistered candidate would not count in the official tally. Once a write-in candidate is registered, little research is required to determine if they are eligible to hold the office for which they are running.
Lucas County Board of Elections officials are right to ask the city to consider putting a charter amendment before voters to implement a registration requirement of write-in candidates in order to count their votes. The registration should be free, as is the state registration.
Elections officials have a lot of irons in the fire during election season, and it doesn’t make sense to require the counting of write-in ballots for cartoon characters or candidates not interested in the job. What’s more, elections workers have to check on whether each of those candidates qualifies for office.
Keep in mind, a voter could still cast a ballot for Mickey or some less well-known candidate. It simply won’t be counted.
Write-in candidates can and do win elections, although it helps if the candidate is well known. Two recent examples include Mayor Mike Duggan of Detroit, who won a contested primary in 2013 that led to his first term as mayor and Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, who won re-election as a write-in candidate after losing the June Democratic primary in the city.
Most write-in candidates don’t win or even make a dent in election returns. That’s what happened in Toledo’s mayoral election. Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz took 23,979 votes to former mayor Carty Finkbeiner’s 10,339 in unofficial results. There were 112 other candidates receiving votes — most of them only got a single vote.
It isn’t right for write-ins to take the time of elections officials paid by taxpayers to count unregistered write-ins and determine whether each and every one of 112 candidates were eligible for office.
The city should look at the possibility of lining Toledo’s charter up with state law and requiring that candidates register before write-in votes for them are tallied.
First Published November 17, 2021, 5:00 a.m.
