Video: Winning A Write-In Election Is Rare, But It Does Happen

PICKENS COUNTY, Al. (WCBI) – The 2016 Presidential Race wasn’t all that was on the ballot Tuesday.

There was an unusual local race in Pickens County, Alabama, where nine-thousand people voted.

Incumbent Pickens County School Superintendent Jamie Chapman, ran as a write-in candidate in the general election against Democratic candidate Travis Bailey.

“In the March primary, the incumbent of superintendent of schools had opposition, and he lost that race, so Alabama has ‘sore loser’ laws, so he couldn’t go back and run in the general election as a Republican, so he had to mount a write- in campaign, and he did and he was very successful at it,” says Pickens County Probate Judge John Earl Paluzzi.

Paluzzi says it’s very difficult to win a write-in election, but it does happen.

“We have a new write-in election law in Alabama that to me, as a lawyer and as a judge, is somewhat hard to determine some of the things that we had to do, such as counting the ballots last night, and we finished counting the ballots about three this morning.”

More than 9,000 ballots were reviewed. Election workers had to make sure the spelling was close to the candidate’s name.

“We do not know that all the votes were cast as write-ins in the superintendent race, but probably most of them are going to be there, and there were so many votes cast. It was one of the largest turnouts we’ve had in Pickens County,” says Paluzzi.

Chapman says people’s support and an organized plan made the write-in election successful for him.

“I had a gentleman from Fayette County, Sheriff Rodney Ingle call me and said, ‘hey, if you want to stay the course, I hear you’ve done a great job down there, and I’ve got some advice I can give you on doing a write-in, and from all I hear, you’ll be successful if you implement what we did up here,’ and we did.”

Teaching voters the steps to cast a write-in vote was crucial. Step one: fill it in. Step two: write it in.

“For us to get unofficially over 5,300 votes, so that means people had to take the time to go in and find the spot, bubble it in, and then take those three to four extra seconds to make sure they wrote on the correct line, and fill it in properly, and in the right space, you know, it just took some doing,” says Chapman.

We reached out to candidate Travis Bailey to speak with him about the race, but our call was not returned.

The results will be made official next Tuesday.

A constitutional amendment was also on the ballot statewide that was added by Judge Paluzzi.

The age restriction law in Alabama, has been around since the early 1900’s, and has been challenged in courts before, but to no success.

The amendment passed statewide, and enables probate judges in Pickens County to run or be appointed to office after age 70.

It goes into effect immediately.

“I think at one time, the feeling of the state legislature when they did that, was judges don’t need to be in office after age 70, but now, I know a lot of judges, and I’m over the age of 70, who are capable of working, and I still feel good physically, and I love my job, and want to continue doing it,” says Paluzzi.