George,

While I am not advocating write-in votes, please note that no write-ins could be accomplished with a pencil in the city of Charlottesville. Since we have the new e-slate voting machines, write-ins must be entered one letter at a time by twisting the dial and entering each letter sequentially.

Ruth Stornetta (electronic mail, February 14, 2004)

Editor's Note: In 2002, Republican Rob Schilling won his council seat, in part, because of single-shotting, i.e. individuals casting only one vote in a race with more than one position open.

There were 1,240 undervotes in the 2002 Charlottesville City Council election. 4,374 voters cast 7,508 votes or approximately 1.7 votes per person in a two-way race.

However, there were also quite a number of write-in votes. Republican Jon "Bright led write-in candidates with 33 votes for various spellings of his name [actually 36, if you include absentee ballots]." (Jake Mooney, May 9, 2002)

If a write-in effort were serious, the board of elections would have to decide which spellings of the write-in candidates name are legitimate enough to count.

Absentee voting for the 2004 Charlottesville City Council race begins on March 22nd.