BUFFALO (WBEN) - Coming off the heals of two major court victories for India Walton, which will keep Byron Brown's name off the November ballot, the Erie County Board of Elections is now preparing for what they're calling an unprecedented election due to Brown's write-in campaign.
"I think it's going to be important for our Board to make sure that the public understands what's happening here and the media understands that post-election day, this is an unprecedented situation for this size of a potential write-in campaign," said Democratic Board of Elections Commissioner Jeremy Zellner. "It's going to take us some time, and we're going to have lay out how this Board is going to handle counting the write-in ballots afterwards.
"We want people ton understand that this has never really happened at this level in the state," Zellner continued. "It's imperative that everyone is understanding what's to come because this is something that we've never dealt with on this level before."
Republican Commissioner Ralph Mohr added that "there are a number of arcane laws" related to the old lever machines that have not been changed by the State Legislature. Because of this, Mohr suggested we could see more legal complications after November 2.
"I would imagine that would also be a subject of litigation, which could occur afterwards," said Mohr. "In addition to that, it's the job of the Board of Elections to try to determine the intent of the voter and to count the vote for the candidate who that voter intended to vote for. We're going to be looking to see whether that vote which was cast as a write-in or filled in as a bubble is one in which the voter intended to vote for."
Mohr noted that the campaigns will have the ability to challenge whether certain votes are proper write-ins. Of course, given the delay in vote counts seen across the country during the 2020 election, both Mohr and Zellner are emphasizing patience with this election, as there will be a number of moving parts, and it may take a while to tally the votes.
"What we will know (the night of the election) is how many votes were cast for the candidate whose name appears on the ballot and how many other votes were cast," said Mohr. "We'll know whether it is possible that a candidate could have received more write-in votes, but who the write-in votes are actually for won't occur until we pull all the ballots and one-by-one go through each ballot to determine who that vote is being cast for."
"I think we're confident, but we're going to have to have a plan in place," added Zellner.
