Voters who do make a spelling error will have their write-in votes counted, as long as election officials can determine the voter's intent, according to David Bierne, a spokesperson for the Harris County Clerk's Office. But it's not misspelling that worries Bederson in this case, so much as voters simply throwing up their hands and bailing out. "We know from experience that people who are doing a long computer task -- that some percentage of people are going to get frustrated or bored, and they're going to give up."
Sabato notes that voters are often in a hurry -- casting ballots on their lunch hour, or on their way to work, or at the end of the day before rushing home to make dinner. Plus, voters often get self-conscious about holding up a line of voters. They don't want to spend too much time in the booth. "This takes time and effort to do," says Sabato. "You have to really be motivated. I'm not sure that motivation is present in that district for this candidate."
Republicans have tried to make it easier for Sekula-Gibbs to compete. On Nov. 7, when voters are twirling dials for her in the general election, they will also be voting for her in a special election. The special election will fill DeLay's vacant seat in Congress through January. Some see the election, ordered by Gov. Rick Perry, as a dirty trick by Republicans to give a boost to their candidate by at least having her on one ballot next to the name of the Republican Party as a reminder to the faithful.
Texas state law also lends Sekula-Gibbs a hand. In Texas, write-in candidates must be certified before the election, and a list of officially approved candidates is available at each polling place. It is also available inside the voting booth itself, on a piece of paper that lists all the write-in candidates' names in the same size and font and without party affiliation.
Sekula-Gibbs will likely win the special election and serve out the remainder of DeLay's term. The Democrat seeking DeLay's former seat in the general election, Nick Lampson, isn't even bothering to run in the special election. But political scientists doubt the special election will make much difference in the main race, given Sekula-Gibbs' late start and write-in status.
For one final twist, not all precincts in the district use the same voting machine. District 22 takes in parts of Harris, Brazoria and Fort Bend counties, which all use the eSlate. But it also includes a chunk of Galveston County, which offers voters a choice of either the eSlate machine or an optical scanning device.
Using the optical scanning device means Republican voters can physically write Sekula-Gibbs' name on a piece of paper. Still, the paper ballots used with the optical scanning devices have their own problems handling write-ins, according to Bederson. For the scanner to recognize that a write-in vote has been cast, the voter must also fill in a bubble next to the blank where the name goes. Some voters simply scribble the name of their candidate on the line and don't mark the bubble, which can lead to votes that aren't counted.
Sabato predicts that Democrat Nick Lampson, with his heavy campaign war chest and the advantage of being on the ballot, will win the race. But he thinks that the Republicans have a good chance of taking back the seat in '08, when they have a candidate on the ballot.
Bederson, meanwhile, has his own write-in vote -- for Diebold. If you're forced to "write in" a vote on a machine, he says, touch-screen machines, like the Diebold AccuVote are the easiest to use correctly. Diebold machines have, however, recently been shown to be vulnerable to hacking.
About the writer
Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior writer for Salon.
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