BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) - Leniency regarding write-in votes on the November ballot will aid Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown in his efforts to defeat India Walton this November.
"Court cases have held that as long as it is identifiable to the candidate, the board of elections is going to count that vote for the candidate," Republican Erie County Elections Commissioner Ralph Mohr said. "It relates a lot to voter intent."
Walton unofficially defeated Brown in last Tuesday's democratic primary, meaning her name will appear on the ballot in November and not the four-term mayor. Brown on Monday officially declared his intent to seek a fifth term in office using write-in votes.
Mohr said Brown could collect votes even if his name were to be spelled as "Biron" or if a voter misspells his last name as "Browne". He may even get a vote count if his name is spelled "B Brown". But if someone were to simply use the mayor's initials, a legal battle may ensue.
"The further off from 'Byron Brown' is, I'm sure the parties would have lawyers try to litigate that point," Shawn Donahue, an assistant political science professor at the University at Buffalo, said.
[shortcode-inline-related expand="1" link="/wben/news/local/brown-enters-november-race-as-write-in-candidate" headline=""There is no Mayor-Elect!" Brown enters November mayoral race as write-in candidate" image="/media-library/image.jpg?id=63624260"]Mohr said litigation could take several weeks and possibly more than a month. It also means that it's unlikely we will know who wins the mayoral race on November 2. However, if Walton surpasses the total number of write-in votes, then she would unofficially be the next mayor.
"We will know how many people went into the voting booth and how many people cast a ballot for the person whose name appears and how many write-ins there are," Mohr said. "What the write-ins are, however, or who the voter voted for, won't be known on election night and won't be known for a good week or so after."
Any name can be written on the ballot. Mohr said people have even voted for Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck.
Turnout will be key
The 2021 general election is likely to have highest number of turnout for an off-year in recent Buffalo history.
There were 74,623 people who voted in the city's mayoral race in 2005 and were energized after a spirited campaign by then-republican candidate Kevin Helfer and the minority vote who were energized with Byron Brown and the opportunity to elect the first Black mayor in the city's history. The largest turnout since then for a mayoral race was in 2017, when 45,746 voted for Brown's fourth term.
Still, the presidential election years are among the highest for turnout in Buffalo. Last year, more than 100,000 people voted for president while nearly 95,000 voted for president in 2016.
"I think it's going to be somewhere in between," Donahue said. "Clearly, you're not going to have the turnout you do in a presidential election. You went from a race where people weren't paying a lot of attention to, including, it seems like Mayor Brown wasn't paying too much attention to it, too...this is now the premier race in Western New York. This being an off-year election, this is a race that's going to draw a lot of national attention."
Donahue expects turnout to increase with the possibility of other prominent democratic socialists, like Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, stumping for Walton.
But some of the traditional campaign strategies will still impact turnout. Donahue said those include in-person visits with constituents.
