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Editorial: “Uncontested?” Vote anyway
Op-Ed · December 07, 2017
The recent West Branch City Council election proved an eye-opener with a last-minute campaign that almost proved fruitful largely with the help of social media.
The two winning candidates — Nick Goodweiler and Jodee Stoolman — turned out to be the two candidates who filed paperwork to get their names on the printed ballot.
From what we can tell, Andy Mundell agreed to run at least three days before the Dec. 7 election. And at least a couple voters thought he would be a good choice earlier than that because his name appeared on two absentee ballots. It’s possible those two voters cast their ballots at the Cedar County Courthouse on the same day as the election, but more likely they requested their ballots in advance.
Mundell’s campaign relied on word-of-mouth and social media, primarily Facebook, and despite that short amount of time he pulled in nearly as many votes — 94 — as Stoolman — 97. Goodweiler, by the way, pulled in 167 votes, making him an almost certain winner, even in a recount.
Mundell’s vote number does come with an asterisk attached, though. A lot of people probably did not cast ballots since, as far as they knew, only two people were running for the two open council seats. That means the top two motivating factors for driving down to Town Hall were, 1. Because they believe in voting in every election possible, even uncontested ones, or, 2. They specifically wanted to vote for Mundell.
Stoolman noted this and encouraged voters to cast ballots even in uncontested races. She called social media “powerful,” and with good reason.
However, a second aspect came into focus when the recount board met last week and took a second look at 14 unresolved votes. In there, 13 people wrote Andy or Andrew Mundell, but did not fill in the circle next to his name.
Many voters speculated that the recount board would look at the “intent” of the voter, and that writing in a name showed clear intent of the voter to support that candidate. However, Iowa law does not permit counting any name or decision without also filling in the target circle next to it.
Thus, Stoolman and Goodweiler had the advantage, at least in this case, by filing early because voting for them only required filling in the circle, not also writing their name. Certainly we can see how a voter might write in the name, but forget to also fill in the circle.
We also believe that Stoolman and Goodweiler also benefitted by making their intentions known to the West Branch Times, which allowed us to provide to the voters information on the candidates and their thoughts on important issues.
We learned through this process that West Branch voters have a strong and frequent presence on Facebook, and that this medium nearly allowed a late entry to win a seat on the council.
Voters should consider the possibility of write-in campaigns and social media before opting to skip a chance to vote in future elections and bond measures.
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