Nov. 6 marked the first large-scale write-in election Prince Edward County had since the county switched its voting system from using an all-electric system with a touchscreen interface to paper ballots submitted to a machine.

Voter Registrar Lynette Wright said the Town of Farmville held write-in elections earlier in the year, but was not to the scale of the county’s on Election Day.

Wright invited The Herald in November to see the ballots firsthand to learn about the process the registrar’s office in Prince Edward had in place during the election.

The election in question was that of the Lockett District seat with the Prince Edward County School Board.

The seat was initially scheduled to have General Jenkins as the candidate, but Jenkins, who began serving on the school board in September 2017, resigned Sept. 5 due to a family emergency.

Douglas Farley and Patricia Carter ran as write-in candidates for the school board seat. Farley received approximately 100 ballots and Carter received approximately 98.

Wright said the county received 337 total votes for the write-in election.

The votes could be seen on what are called tapes, or what look like receipts that copy the vote and the voter’s handwriting.

A portion of the write-in votes could not be considered due to factors that relate to guidelines with the Virginia Department of Elections.

The write-in election had a local board of electors who determined which votes met state guidelines and which did not.

The board did not accept votes that only had the last names of candidates (i.e., Farley or Carter) due to county records indicating multiple Farleys or Carters registered in the county. Even if voters wrote D. Farley or P. Carter, Wright said there were more than one Farley or Carter whose name started with the letters D or P in Prince Edward.

There were approximately two votes with Kalimah Carter written. Those votes had not been counted because the registered name that the election board had in the county was Patricia Carter. There is an exception that, prior to the election, the candidate can submit a list of names that can be considered that differ from the names that are registered.

Wright said the local election board determines the votes that count based on gauging the intent of the voter. There were a few votes where Carter and Farley’s names were misspelled, but members of the board accepted those because they gauged that the intent of the voter was to vote for those two candidates.

The county election board consisted of Dr. Samuel Martin (registered Democrat), Charles Puckett, (registered Republican) and secretary Gwendolyn Booker (registered Democrat).

Other votes that did not meet state or local election guidelines included that some wrote the names of candidates running for the board of supervisors seat (Gene Southall and Dr. Peter Gur); some votes had peoples’ names who were not running; some ballots were left blank; and there were a few with irrelevant votes such as Mickey Mouse and Ronald Reagan.

There were eight Central Absentee Precinct (CAP) votes, where absentee ballots from each precinct are collected in one central location. Three of the eight voted for Carter. There were no CAP votes for Farley.

Wright said that except for Democratic or Republican primaries that take place in June, all future elections have the option to write in candidates’ names.