03/13/2025
MYTH BUSTER: Write-ins do NOT need to be spelled perfectly. As long as the intent of the voter can be reasonably assumed, their vote is counted for the candidate we assume they wanted, especially in the instance of a coordinated write-in campaign.
Either way EVERY write-in vote is recorded (yes, even all those Tom Brady & Mickey Mouse votes) and filed with the election results. So any doubt that your vote for a specific person wasn’t properly applied to them can be answered by looking at the election results. We had 2 obvious write-in campaigns with difficult spellings. If you look at the results, you will see there are NOT votes listed for any write-in that was “probably meant” for Butkewicz or Arendarczyk—and that is because we applied “reasonable intent” and awarded those candidates every vote that was, at least a valid attempt to spell their names.
Our ballot counting device does not adjudicate write-in votes, our election workers do. Every team assigned to adjudicating write-ins includes a Democrat and a Republican. Ensuring balance and integrity at our elections is of the utmost importance to your modertor and our entire team!
PSA: Please remember how I said EVERY write-in is recorded. It is absolutely your right to write-in whomever/whateverer you want; your election workers just kindly ask you to remember that they have already worked a VERY long day and the more write-ins we have, the longer we work. If voting for Mickey Mouse is not a legitimate way to make sure your vote matters, maybe reconsider voting him in for Nottingham Planning Board next year😉
