HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Board of Reno County Commissioners traditionally acts as the county board of canvassers, who are the final arbiters of whether or not provisional ballots and ballots with write in votes on them are counted or not.
The likely most competitive county commission race that includes a write in candidate is for Reno County Commission District 1, currently served by Ron Sellers. As it happens, Sellers is unavailable to be on the canvassing board for the November 8 election when it meets on November 17.
Michelle Updegrove, Registrar of Deeds, will be the third member of the canvassing board that day, along with the two commissioners who are not up for election this time around, Ron Hirst and Daniel Friesen.
Friesen asked at Tuesday's county commission meeting for County Counselor Patrick Hoffman to explain how that process might work, if they have enough ballots with write in votes on them to potentially have an effect on any race.
"It has to be close for it to really be a big, big challenge," Friesen said. "It sounds like if you get to a certain level of sensitivity, the determination ballot by ballot may become much more important."
Hoffman gave election officials and the people who will be looking at ballots before commissioners see them some guardrails to follow.
"Here is a list of people who identified a write in candidate by first and last name and properly spelled that person's name," Hoffman said. "Here is a list where they properly spelled the surname. Some people will just write in, for me, maybe, Hoffman, or just the surname, so that category and then they'll have a different category of possibly a misspelled surname, which unfortunately, sometimes happens."
This really will only become an issue if the count on election night is as close as the one in the District 1 Republican primary. Randy Parks won that race by a single digit margin.