Write-ins wrangled

WAYNESBORO — Despite a clear, double-digit margin of victory for Republican Stephanie Beverage in the city treasurer’s race, election officials spent Wednesday tallying votes for two write-in candidates.

Amid misspellings, cartoon character jokes and at least six cases of voters accidentally writing on voting machines instead of typing in names, officials arrived at a tally: candidate Jim Serba gathered 16 percent, or 703, of the votes and Terry Kent 12 percent, or 522.

Beverage captured 42 percent of the vote while incumbent Treasurer Sandra “Sandee” Dixon mustered 26 percent.

Another 158 write-in votes were classified as “other.” Officials resolved last week to accept votes for Serba and Kent only if they included first and last name. Votes for “Jim” or “Kent” didn’t boost their tallies, said Waynesboro Board of Elections Secretary Mary Alice Downs.

“It’s been an all-day process,” Downs said of write-in counting. “Normally we’re done in an hour-and-a-half.”

Downs said the city has not had a viable write-in candidate in her two decades on the board.

“We faithfully tried to figure out ... the intention of the voters,” she said, ticking off a list of oddball candidates.

“Oscar, whoever Oscar is ... The Grouch?” she said. “Mickey Mouse. We always have a Mickey Mouse.”

Officials accepted a variety of spellings for Serba, including Surba and Serbia, and Kent’s count grew even for those who spelled his first name “Terri.”

Names entered without a space, or that incorrectly included a hyphen, were also included in final calculations.

Kent edged out Serba in Ward C, where Kent lives, and Ward A, where he had poll workers handing out flyers.

Serba beat Kent in larger wards B and D.

“I hit every house in those two wards,” he said Wednesday.

Serba did more door-to-door campaigning than Kent, who sent a mailing to residents, as did Beverage.

Treasurer-elect Beverage will take a course in December before entering office, where she promised to “straighten out” problems reported in state audits of Dixon’s office.

Election officials, meanwhile, will consider what to do with voting machines marred by voters who literally wrote candidate names on screens.

“The last one must have used an indelible ink,” Downs said.