George,

Today is election day for City Council. What happens when you vote for a candidate who is on the ballot, and then vote for him again as a write-in? Are you casting two votes for one candidate?

At first, the help desk in Charlottesville's Registrar's office thought only one of the votes would be counted. Then they thought again. On reflection they said, "it would be up to the electoral board."

The machines are capable of tracking individual ballots. So double voting will be spotted. The question remains: does the ballot count as one vote, two votes, or is it invalid and count as no votes at all?

There is an argument that it should be two. That is how cumulative voting works for stockholders in a corporate election for the Board of Directors. That is, if you own 100 shares you can cast all 100 votes for one Director out of the five or six on the ballot, thus multiplying the chances your candidate will win.

In Charlottesville's at-large City Council election today each voter gets two votes, so why shouldn't we cast both for one candidate? After all, anybody who votes for the lone Republican, and then uses their remaining vote for a Democrat, is essentially canceling out their first vote, since the highest cumulative total wins.

Then again, we are used to thinking in terms of one-man-one-vote, and the idea of casting two votes for one candidate is counter-intuitive.

Should that ballot be called null and void, cancelled out entirely, when the voter very clearly intended to vote, to vote for one candidate and one only, and felt so strongly about it that he backed up his vote with a second for the same guy?

We may know soon enough. I tried it. The machine accepted my two votes for the same candidate. Now it's up to the election board.

John B. Yellott Jr. (electronic mail, May 2, 2006)