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Cartoon characters, radio host and Pi among top Fayette draws for write-in votes

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Jagdish P. Agrawal was the leading vote-getter among write-in “candidates” selected by Fayette County voters in last week’s primary election.

All of Agrawal’s 33 votes came from the Starr’s Mill precinct, according to records from the county’s elections office. Agrawal’s name was written in 14 times for state court judge, a race in which incumbent Fletcher Sams was running unopposed. He also got 14 votes for a seat on the Court of Appeals and four votes for the Post 3 magistrate race, won by incumbent Bob Ruppenthal and one vote in the Post 2 magistrate race against incumbent Charles R. Floyd, who was unopposed.

At press time Tuesday afternoon, it was unclear if the votes were intended for the J.P. Agrawal who got 33 percent of the vote in the 2000 U.S. House of Representatives Democratic primary against Gail Notti.

Local radio talk show host Neal Boortz got nine total votes for a seat on the Court of Appeals. He tied with 3.14P, which may be the in-joke vote for mathematically inclined voters indicating their preference to Pi, the numerical variant that begins with 3.14, instead of any of the qualified candidates in the court of appeals race.

Interestingly, all of the 3.14P votes, and one for “3.14P;” came from the McIntosh polling place.

Kenny Melear, who resigned from his seat as the county’s chief magistrate in 2002 after allegations surfaced that he used a racial epithet to refer to a criminal suspect in a conversation with a police detective, received five votes for the post 1 magistrate seat, which was won by unopposed incumbent Joe A. Tinsley. He also received two votes for the post 2 race.

Write-in votes were only allowed for the non-partisan races, which were for Superior Court judge, State Court judge, Supreme Court judge and Court of Appeals judge.

Technically, none of the write-in votes “counted” because election rules require write-in candidates to qualify for office as all other candidates do.

Some like-minded voters wrote in “Anybody Else” or “Anyone Else” three times in the state court judge race. One elector wrote “Anyone but Fletc,” while another wrote in “Anybody bt him,” both apparent references to sitting State Court Judge Fletcher Sams, who ran unopposed and got 17,126 votes.

Also getting one vote were:

• Santa Clause (spelled that way), one vote for State Court Judge.

• Tommy Chong, former movie star, one vote for a Court of Appeals seat.

• Mickey Mouse, a cartoon character, two votes for Superior Court Judge and one vote for Court of Appeals Judge.

• Donald Duck, one vote for State Court Judge, and D. Duck (could have been Daffy Duck), one vote for State Court Judge.

• Another cartoon character, Elmer Fudd, received on vote for the post 1 Magistrate Court race.

• Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy, one vote for State Court Judge.

• Bob Dylan, singer, one vote for Court of Appeals Judge.

• Another cartoon character, Homer Simpson, one vote for Superior Court Judge.