Write-in votes always means extra work for Cerro Gordo County election workers — see if you were written in on a ballot

MASON CITY — The election has been over for two weeks, and looking over the final results, Cerro Gordo County had 78 write-in votes for president and a total of 918 write-ins for all the races that were on the ballot throughout the county.

County Auditor Adam Wedmore says the absentee vote board has to look through all the write-ins, real or fake, and tabulate them. While write-in candidates in major elections like the one we had a few weeks ago are rare, they do happen in some of the lesser races.   “For this general election, every race did have a candidate file, so write-ins did not win any of those races. However, some races, some smaller elections, you could have races decided by write-in votes, especially if candidates did not file, so it was essentially no candidate on the ballot.”

Mickey Mouse always seems to be a favorite write-in no matter what race it is, this year receiving a total of 12 write-in votes. Wedmore says though many times, the write-in oval will be filled in, but as the case was almost 350 times in this election, nobody actually is written in.  “We see a lot of blanks. A voter will fill in the target for a write-in but doesn’t actually write in any name in there, so we just tabulate those as a blank. They took the time to fill in the target but not the time to write a name down. Mickey Mouse, other fictitious names do get wrote down occasionally.”

Wedmore says while his office takes the election process very seriously, going through the list of write-ins does provide some humor, but it still means more work for the Auditor’s office staff.  “We would encourage voters to do their research ahead of time, and research the candidates and vote for the candidate they wish. I just remind voters that if they truly do not want to vote for any of the candidates on that race, they can simply skip that race. Their vote will still count for all the other races, they can choose to skip that vote if they want. If they really, truly want to write in a fictitious name, then that’s their right. I just want to let them know it does add additional workload to us, but that’s what we’re here to do is tabulate the votes.”

Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was the most popular write-in vote for president, getting 10 of the 78 write-ins. There were five “none of the above” or blank responses. Taylor Swift did receive one vote for president.

If you want to see the full list of all 918 write-in votes and see if you were maybe written in,  click on this link