Alabama: counting write-in votes costs counties time and expense
The Birmingham News reports: Those write-in votes eat up the time and patience of election officials and poll workers, said Kim Melton, who supervised Shelby County's general election this year because [Probate Judge] Fuhrmeister was ill.
Melton estimated that about 6,000 write-in votes were cast on the county's 49,009 ballots.
"In our office, two clerks worked on it for three days just to compile all of the write-ins from all the precincts into one report," Melton said. "It takes longer for everyone to get back on election night because the poll workers have to list write-ins that night at the precinct.
"And it definitely caused a backlog in other things that we do in this office," she said. -- Write-in votes try patience of poll workers
Comments
35 states have a law, requiring write-in candidates who wish to have their write-ins tally file a declaration of write-in candidacy. I have been trying to persuade Alabama to pass a similar law for over 20 years. If the state would do this simple thing, the burden of counting most write-ins would be lifted.
Posted by: Richard Winger![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.votelaw.com/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 20, 2006 9:02 AM