Luzerne County concludes write-in vote tally, slowed by names written in jest

“Bruce Springstein!,” Luzerne County Election Board Vice Chairwoman Alyssa Fusaro announced to the room of county workers and board members processing May 20 primary election write-in votes.

A few minutes later, another voter write-in selection of Bart Simpson for a school board seat was shouted out by someone else.

To break the monotony of reviewing more than 20,000 write-in votes and illustrate the scale of the problem of write-ins submitted in jest, the group decided to log the questionable ones on a dry-erase board.

The board eventually had to be flipped to the other side to squeeze them all in. A second board would have been needed if the group had recorded off-color write-ins, participants said.

It was funny but not funny.

Fusaro said many voters also write in their own names or those of friends or family, even though none of them want the seat.

Unlike the ones on the dry-erase board, these potential real contenders must be made part of the official record in races that have no candidates appearing on the ballot.

Some voters also go out of their way to write the same name for every single race on the ballot — local, county and statewide offices.

Write-ins that are not serious slow down completion of the write-in tallying while the public is pushing to see the write-in results as fast as possible, Fusaro said.

In addition to the usual cartoon characters, celebrities both dead and alive, classic figures from fiction, national-level politicians and random criminals, there were these verbatim selections in the county primary: “someone different,” “no one else,” “anybody else,” “anybody honest,” “unknown,” “none of you,” “all suck,” “stop stealing,” “someone new,” “why I pay,” “I’ve no kids,” “anyone represent taxpayer,” “none,” “no buddy,” “not me,” “not you” and “not any of these clowns.”

Other voters tried to convey a broader message by writing in “the U.S. Constitution,” “life,” “liberty,” “justice,” “property,” “corruption,” “sleaze,” “racist,” “connected” and “Free Palestine.”

Also worth mentioning were selections of “box of paper,” “baloney and ham sammich” and “box of rocks.”

County officials started observing a marked increase in write-in votes in 2006 when the county switched to electronic ballot marking devices, with some theorizing the write-in option was more noticeable than it had been on the old lever machines.

The May 20 primary election tallying group spent six days at the county’s Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre adjudicating write-in votes and ballots that had been flagged due to extraneous marks and other issues.

Around 3 p.m. Tuesday, county Election Director Emily Cook alerted everyone that there were 39 ballots remaining for review.

“We can do this,” someone yelled.

A collective countdown erupted when the last ballot review was underway about 10 minutes later.

Cook said a report on the write-in winners will be posted on the election page of the county website at luzernecounty.org.

Letters will be sent to write-in winners asking them to accept or decline the nomination by a certain deadline. Those accepting will be required to submit paperwork.

The election board is set to certify the primary results at 10 a.m. Monday in the county courthouse on River Street in Wilkes-Barre, said Election Board Chairwoman Christine Boyle.