Some write-in candidates comical

It never fails.

In every election, somebody writes in Mickey Mouse as the preferred candidate for every office from president to township treasurer. But the write-ins don’t end with the ultra-cheerful cartoon mouse. People write in their mother for county commissioner, their neighbor for U.S. Senate and cartoon characters ranging from Homer Simpson to Kermit the Frog.

“When you have a spot on the ballot that allows people to write in a candidate, people are going to use it,” said Marni Penrod, deputy of elections in the Douglas County Clerk’s office.

The November election was no exception in Douglas County. It took the clerk’s office through last week to check and account for all write-in votes. With a few exceptions, at least one person was penned in for most races.

The biggest draw, however, was for sheriff, which had nearly 1,100 different write-in candidates.

Penrod speculates the abundant number of write-ins for the office had to do with Sheriff-elect Ken McGovern’s lack of challengers.

“I think people become more comfortable with writing in a person then,” she said. “They know it likely won’t impact the outcome of the election.”

McGovern handily won the race with 35,499 votes. The largest write-in vote went to a person named Dan Cook, who received 103 votes. Current Sheriff Rick Trapp garnered 24 votes, and Disney’s cartoon mouse came in fourth with 20 votes.

Tossing a vote

Some may see writing in a cartoon character for office as childish or belittling the democratic process.

But political scientists at Kansas University disagreed. People writing in votes are hardly jokers, they said.

Voter turnout in most elections has been pretty poor, said Don Haider-Markel, associate professor of political science.

“When a person is willing to go and vote and take the time to write in a name, I’d say they take the process seriously, even if they write in Mickey Mouse,” he said. “They took the time to vote.”

The overall logic is that people generally write in a candidate when they don’t feel like they have a choice, Haider-Markel said.

“Even if there are two candidates, they may be very similar,” he said. “This is about having alternatives.”

Burdett Loomis, chairman of KU’s political science department agreed, saying voting offered people a chance not just to do their civic duty, but make a statement and sometimes entertain themselves.

“There always is a temptation to look at the candidates and say ‘are you kidding me?'” Loomis said. “So, in some cases, they may not vote in the race or they will vote for their neighbor or Mickey Mouse.”

No declaration, no vote

While county clerks and election officers count up write-in votes at the local level, those totals rarely are forwarded to the Kansas Secretary of State’s office.

Jesse Borjon, spokesman for the office, said the state wasn’t required to keep track of write-in candidates.

“That information doesn’t come to our office unless the counties see that the write-in candidate has more votes than an actual candidate,” he said.

And the votes of those write-in candidates for president or governor probably are being ignored. In Kansas, people have to file a notice of intent to be considered as write-in candidates for those two offices.

“But we don’t do that for any of the other offices,” Borjon said. “It’s just for president and governor.”