from staff
The headline this week was that John Thrasher won the Special Election for State Senate Dist. 8.
The rest of the story was Thrasher won by a landslide with 90 percent of the fewer than 12,000 votes cast. That wasn’t too surprising since he was the only candidate with his name actually printed on the ballot while facing a trio of qualified write-in candidates. In terms of being a “qualified” write-in candidate, that means Robert Ratten (29 votes), John P. Rosso (12 votes) and Alden Lawrence Brayton Jr. (8 votes) presented themselves at the Supervisor of Elections Office to officially identify themselves as “qualified.”
Some voters used the opportunity to write in a name on a ballot as a chance to make a political statement and others apparently see it as an opportunity to have some fun, as evidenced by the results of this week’s results.
Other than 166 voters who chose to write in their own names, here are the top vote-getters among those who were not officially qualified as write-in candidates, based on data provided by the Duval County Supervisor of Elections Office:
• Art Graham 162
• Dan Quiggle 117
• Stan Jordan 81
• Anybody Else 16
• None 12
• John Delaney 10
• Democrat 8
• Anybody But 7
• Mickey Mouse 7
• “Jack” Godbold 4
• Receiving three votes were Aaron Bean, John Doe, Jim King, Lake Ray, Lyman Fletcher and Nat Glover.
• Receiving two votes were Alfred E. Newman, Andy Johnson, Armondo the Cabana Boy, Art Shad, Donald Duck, Eric Smith, James Traficant, Josh Keenan, Linda King, Lake Ray III, Scott Shine, Sonny Bono and Tim Tebow.
• Forty-four names received one write-in vote including Barry Goldwater, Bill Clinton, Billy Graham, Bozo, Charles the Train, God, Harry Shorstein, Don Redman, E. Denise Lee, Homer J. Simpson, Jay Leno, Jimmy Carter, John Peyton, John Rutherford, Josh Scobee, Santa Claus and the Diabolical Doctor Fell.