Republicans in Victor are scrambling to make up for a mistake that kept them off the ballot. The Victor Republican Committee is sending out “write in” kits.
“We're working very hard. We’ve done a lot of work on trying to get the people educated the voters how to do write in,” said Eleanor Barry Chairperson of the Victor Republican Committee.
The committee handed out nearly seven thousand “write-n kits” over the past few weeks. The kits contain a sample ballot, a pencil, and instructions of how to write in a candidate.
Barry thinks the kits will help on Election Day.
“Oh yes, I think it is. We have given pencils out with names on them so they can take those into the polls if they don’t know how to spell a name or can’t remember what the name is if they want to write in,” said Barry.
Just down the road in East Bloomfield, neither Republicans nor Democrats will be on the ballot. Ontario County Election officials say this is the first time they've had two towns where all the candidates in one or two parties were “write ins”.
Republican election commissioner Mike Northrop says they’ll have extra voting machines and commissioners on hand.
“We have taken some steps to allow for the voters to spend a little more time in the voting machine,” said Northrop.
Democratic election commissioner Mary Salotti says a high number of write ins could make it longer to tally the votes.
“It will also be different in the canvassing aspect because we too will have to count all of these write in votes and be sure that we're as accurate as possible,” said Sallotti.
.Barry says the kits were handed out to Republicans, conservatives, and “no marks”. The total cost of the campaign is estimated at about ten thousand dollars.
