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Editorial: Voter intent should be deciding factor in write-ins

On Monday of this week, a new trustee, Mary Papantos, was sworn in as a Wheeling village board member. Whether she stays there will be up to the Cook County circuit court.

Once again, a local election is in limbo over a write-in campaign. Former trustee Joe Vito argues that 34 write-in votes were wrongly rejected by the Cook County Clerk's Office. He wants the circuit court to overturn the clerk's decision.

Since 26 votes made up Papantos's margin of victory, a swing of just 27 votes would give the seat to Vito.

Why did the clerk's office not count those 34 votes? In 33 of them, the voters wrote Vito's name correctly on the paper ballot, but did not fill in the corresponding arrow (in the 34th, a voter wrote "Joe Vogel.")

Citing past precedent and the law, the clerk's office did not count those. Without an arrow - which is how voters indicate their choices on paper ballots - the machine has nothing to count, and a definitive choice has not been made.

But, bottom line, Vito got more votes.

To be clear, our argument isn't with the clerk's office or Papantos. We agree the clerk didn't have the authority to count those votes for Vito. The Daily Herald endorsed Papantos and should she keep the seat, she will make a very good trustee.

Our problem is with a system that can leave voters disenfranchised.

Where voter intent is clear - and yes, we think writing the candidate's name on a ballot shows clear intent - that vote should be counted.

Remember the 1999 mayoral race in Prospect Heights? Gerry Anderson does. He ran a write-in campaign for mayor and got more votes than the incumbent mayor on the ballot. When the incumbent appealed, Anderson wound up losing by 42 votes, largely because too many voters put a check mark in the box next to his name and not the required "X."

In that case, as with the 33 Wheeling voters, they essentially brought this on themselves by not following the rules. It's not hard to cast a correct write-in ballot, either on paper or electronically.

But we're dealing with humans here - moreover, the humans who voted in the April 7 election when the other 91.2 percent of eligible voters in Wheeling didn't bother.

In taking this to the circuit court, Vito isn't wasting everybody's time - instead, along with processing his own claim, he may get a ruling that clarifies this a little bit better for everyone. Each ruling on election law makes things clearer down the road.

Election law and processes change over time. We hope that in time, voter intent will become the singular most influential factor is deciding whether to count write-in votes.

If not this time, then soon.

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