Don't Be Cruel
(to a poll worker's heart that's true)
By Chip Drago
Mobile Bay Times
Is Elvis alive, right here in Mobile County?
The possibility can’t be dismissed if you’re an election worker in Mobile County Probate Court. For unlike other write-in candidates such as Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny, Elvis Presley was (is?) a real person and there may in fact be a living person named Elvis Presley right here and eligible to hold public office, Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis concedes.
Forgive election officials if they do not share the public’s mirth when it scribbles in the “King,” Superman or a ne’er-do-well brother-in-law as a private joke. Humor tends to wane in the wee hours of the morning counting ballots at the courthouse.
Aside from the grind of dealing with runaway write-in candidacies, Davis reported that the election here Nov. 7 “all in all … went well.”
Still, those write-ins were like carrying a cat down the street by the tail. The memory doesn’t fade with the passage of time.
“I’m glad it’s behind us,” said Davis. “The biggest single ‘problem’ we had was the unexpected increase in the number of write-in votes.”
In Mobile County alone, there were a total of 17,873 write-ins cast, a huge increase from 2002 when just 619 write-ins were cast. The county’s new voting system is the culprit, election officials acknowledge. Under the old touch-screen method, voters were less likely to have a pen in hand. The new voting system requires a pen and paper for every vote, virtually inviting the write-in epidemic. The virus did not spread across the bay where Baldwin County officials reported a relatively mild increase in write-in ballots, 5,668 compared to 3,080 four years ago. Baldwin County has used the same voting system for 12 years.
“Of these (17,873 Mobile County write-ins), 5,081 related to possibly real people,” Davis noted. “However, this second number is a misnomer of sorts because, for example, it includes votes for ‘Elvis Presley’ …conceivably there could be a living Elvis Presley in Mobile County.”
If so, the King is now much reduced, a nuisance, a mere also-ran for mostly obscure public offices.
Write-in votes are supposed to be counted at the polls, according to the judge. The number of write-in votes so overwhelmed poll workers, who had already worked 13 hours at the polls, that many of them, out of frustration, didn’t count their write-in ballots, said Davis.
A small survey of area voters failed to uncover any who admitted to casting either frivolous or serious write-in votes.
Mobile attorney Johnny Brutkiewicz did not catch the write-in fever.
“After the bar exam in 1985, I’ve refused to take any test -- blood, alcohol, drug, paternity, field sobriety, surveys, I.Q. -- and a write-in is too much like a test,” said Brutkiewicz.
Mobile CPA Tim Gaston had planned to cast some write-in votes, but decided against it after a local attorney explained the implications for election workers.
“I considered casting a write-in ballot against (Circuit Judge) Herman Thomas and (state Rep.) Yvonne Kennedy,” he said. “(Mobile attorney) Wes Pipes informed me that if I cast my ballot in that manner it would have to be hand counted and it was a burden on the probate office so I didn’t do it. Had there been a common opponent I would have anyway. It is a shame that we can’t have a choice in the general election, especially when there has been questionable behavior by the candidates.”
Thomas was embroiled in a controversy over his involvement in the DUI arrest and jailing of his cousin, ex-School Board member David Thomas, who is a vice president at Bishop State Community College. Kennedy, the BSCC president, has been under fire stemming from an investigation into financial irregularities at the school.
The county spent about $4,000 extra for the probate court’s staff to work overtime (during a Veterans’ Day holiday weekend) to count the write-in votes, Davis said. The county is also expected to incur some other miscellaneous expenses relating to the write-in aspect of the election, including legal fees stemming from Davis’ trip to Circuit Court to request permission for the probate court’s staff to count the write-in ballots.
Write-in votes are not allowed in primary or municipal elections and, because of the time and effort needed to tally them, some officials think they should also be banned in general elections, according to an Associated Press report.
Davis said he visited 46 polls on Election Day.
“I received more positive comments about the new voting machine system than negative comments,” said Davis, who perhaps encountered more than a few write-in aficionados.
So next time you sit down to mark your ballot, “Don’t Be Cruel (To a Poll Worker’s Heart That’s True).”
