That’s a shame. With your username you seem perfect for politics.
That is a great story, though.
lol - if your local politics are anything like mine, he certainly was.
Since I don’t want to work, here’s the story in greater detail:
I used to live in the town of Hillsboro, VA - 33 houses, around 100 people. Often hailed as “the smallest incorporated town in Virginia,” which may or may not be true. At any rate that’s what people claimed. It’s a cute town but it has some strange traditions… election traditions being right up there.
There was a long-standing election tradition in Hillsboro - the tradition is that nobody is ever listed on the ballot. The mayor and town council are always elected by write-in ballots. It worked like this: You’d let word get out you were interested in running for an office; once you did that, certain long-time residents down at the general store would pass the word around on on the sly that you a candidate. After a while everyone in town knew who was running (the general store was also used as a Post Office where we picked up our mail, so people went there regularly). The election was held, they’d tally the write-in votes, and lo and behold, the people who expressed an interest were elected by write-in! It was like magic.
Tell the truth, it was considered scandalous to get on the ballot or actively campaign for election. There was a story the prior owner of my house campaigned to get on the town council in the 70s. Word had it he received 3 votes - his, his wife’s, and his daughters. So active campaigns = bad!
Fast forward to the mid 90s. There were a number of “new people” (myself included) who thought the people repeatedly running and winning were getting a bit long in the tooth (I mean, they’d probably been on the town council for 10 years +). Combine that with the fact that the current mayor had publicly stated he was not running for re-election. A few of us got together at my house and while talking about the sad state of political affairs decided we should all run for town council + mayor. So I went around the circle, starting from my left, asking each person “what office do you want to run for?”. One by one everyone answered “town council is fine, but I’m not running for mayor.” I was the last one to speak … so by then it was obvious nobody else was running for mayor and it had to be me.
We decided to break with tradition and list ourselves on the ballot - that would make election pretty certain, since people will tend to vote for people whose names they see on the ballot (as opposed to the write-in tradition we were changing). We had planned ahead and gotten the forms you used to get on the ballot; since the ballot nomination forms required two registered voter signatures, we filled out the forms and randomly passed them around the room to get signed. The forms were all filed. So not only had we broken with tradition by avoiding the “good old boy network,” we were actually putting our names on the frickin’ ballots!
But the best laid plans…
As it turns out, one of the guys who signed my form was not a registered voter. So that meant my application form was ruled invalid… that meant while there were people listed for Town Council, the Mayoral race was once again going to be a write-in contest. I guess some traditions are more difficult to change that we thought.
Election day came. My wife baked me a celebratory cake. Since I was running unapposed, it didn’t seem like a big stretch. Evening fell, and we were waiting for the phone call that would make it official. Heck, I was even interviewed by the local radio station! They asked if I was worried that I wasn’t on the ballot … I was all, “no, there is a strong tradition of write-in candidates in Hillsboro, and people know I’m running, so I’m sure it will all work out.”. Finally, the phone rang… it was Jocelyn, our neighbor from two doors down who counts the votes. Her first words… “Chuck, I’m sorry” “Sorry about what?” “You lost” “Lost???” “Yes, you lost 17-16.” “How could I lose when there was nobody running against me?”
As it turns out, the incumbent mayor decided at the last minute he was interested in running… he put word out and the Hillsboro political machine sprung into action. And so I lost.
By one vote.
I hung up he phone, a bit deflated. We began discussing what to do with the cake when the phone rang again. This time it was the radio station. “Mr. Charlatan, what are your thoughts on the tie result for Hillsboro’s mayor?” “Tie? I heard I lost” “No, there was an absentee ballot filed” As it turns out, a neighbor down the street was on travel, and he had filed an absentee ballot prior to leaving town. So from the jaws of defeat I grabbed a tie result, 17-17!
And as described above, what the Virginia Board of Elections does in this situation was send a guy up from Richmond. That guy grabbed a cardboard box from somewhere, wrote our two names on slips of paper and threw them in the box. My wife and son were attending the “ceremony” as my representatives, and since my son available as a somewhat impartial observer (he was maybe 2 or 3 at the time), the representative asked him to reach in the box an grab one of the papers. He did. It was my opponent’s name.
And the rest is history!
We ate the cake. And soon thereafter my wife presented me with a tee shirt that said “Don’t blame me, I voted for the other guy!”
That was the apex of my political career - the time I tied for mayor.
So, did all your friends end up on the town council?
Well I’m sure this will go well. Are any Democrats invited to the drawing ceremony?
Why bother, when there’s a perfectly corruptible—er, I mean competent Republican to do it?
edit - any chance this DOESN’T get appealed?
I honestly don’t recall… it was 25+ years ago!
reporter’s recreation:
rules for votes when there are multiple picked and an extra mark is there:
[quote]If there are identical marks for two or more candidates, clarified by an additional mark or marks that
appear to indicate support, the ballot shall be counted as a vote for the candidate with the additional,
clarifying marks.
[/quote]
looks like should have been counted for the democrat but, oddly, wasn’t.
The rest of the votes were for Republican candidates, so I can see the debate as to the voter’s intent.
Yeah, I would count that one as a vote for the Republican. I think the Democrat’s name has been crossed off and the Republican name filled in later as a correction.
But by who? DUM DUM DUH!
Interesting that it refers to a mark that appears to indicate support. There isn’t any such mark on that ballot. There’s a mark I would interpret as indicating LACK of support, but that doesn’t appear to be in the law.
Looks like they really, really didn’t want to vote for Gillespie, then.
Yeah, a reasonable reading of the ballot is to give the vote to the republican., Since they voted for Republicans across the rest of the ballot.
Personally, I’m in favor of just throwing out screwed up ballots, because if you are too dumb to fill out a ballot…
The actual ballot:
Holy shit that is confusing. They put an x on Gilespie and a single line on Simonds.
Toss it.