Pranksters, or disenfranchised voters?  You Decide!

Associated Press 11/12/2004

Pranksters Stuff the Ballot Box 

Imagine a Minnesota where Mickey Mouse, Elmer Fudd, Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson controlled the judicial branch of the government. Or a country where George Bush and Dick Cheney served as Dalton water conservation officers.

Such is the world of write-in votes. In Otter Tail County, nearly every polling place in every city or township had at least one or two jokesters who opted to write in a humorous candidate rather than settle for the choices listed on the ballot.

Seven candidates, each real and legitimate, got picked in the Pelican Valley Health Center election, but all of them got the same number of votes (one) as Bozo the Clown.

In Sverdrup Township, Donald Duck got a vote for each of the 17 judge seats.

It's typical for the judges' elections to take the brunt of write-in humor. Voters faced with a race where they know nothing about the candidates often choose to say, "Yo mama," as one person did in Girard Township, or Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh in Friberg Township.

But it's not always pop icons that get votes. In the same Fergus Falls Ward where Rick James was nominated for the bench, some voters decided to write in a real name for a judge seat: public defender Helen Wade McPherson, who got seven more votes than James. McPherson also garnered votes for mayor, City Council, soil and water commissioner and county commissioner.