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MISSOURI CITY, Mo. (AP) -- They say every vote counts, but not when there aren't any.
A candidate running unopposed for City Council in Missouri City, Missouri, wasn't re-elected because he didn't get any votes all. Not even one from himself.
Joe Selle says he simply forgot that Tuesday was election day, and apparently so did the other 34 registered voters in Ward three.
Missouri City, Missouri (MO 64072) profile: population, maps, real estate, averages, homes, statistics, relocation, travel, jobs, hospitals, schools, crime, moving, houses, news, sex offenders
The result was zero votes cast in Selle's race, but officials say the city charter lets him keep the seat unless someone else is "successfully elected and qualified."
'full articule'-
MISSOURI CITY, Mo. (AP) -- They say every vote counts, but not when there aren't any.
A candidate running unopposed for City Council in Missouri City, Missouri, wasn't re-elected because he didn't get any votes all. Not even one from himself.
Joe Selle says he simply forgot that Tuesday was election day, and apparently so did the other 34 registered voters in Ward three.
Missouri City, Missouri (MO 64072) profile: population, maps, real estate, averages, homes, statistics, relocation, travel, jobs, hospitals, schools, crime, moving, houses, news, sex offenders
The result was zero votes cast in Selle's race, but officials say the city charter lets him keep the seat unless someone else is "successfully elected and qualified."
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http://www.kansascity.com/115/story/59970.html
Posted on Thu, Apr. 05, 2007
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Missouri City candidate fails to vote, and so does everyone else
Town held an election and nobody showed up. Now town tries to figure it out.
Just one vote separated Missouri City alderman candidate Joe Selle from a clear victory.
His own.
Selle said he simply forgot to vote, and so did everyone else in Ward 3.
So does a zero vote total for an unopposed candidate mean no decision and a vacant seat? Confused officials wondered about that Wednesday.
“I saw them down at the school” polling place, Selle said of Tuesday’s election, “but it never occurred to me that’s what they were there for.”
Selle, 42, a professional musician, filled a recent Ward 3 vacancy on the City Council by appointment.
He assumed that no election opposition meant the next term was automatically his.
“It’s pretty small-town stuff down here, man,” Selle said.
He’s right.
Missouri City operates under a unique charter approved by the Missouri legislature in 1859, said city attorney Steven Wolcott.
In 2001, the city’s first woman mayor survived a post-election legal challenge and was sworn in. But only after the City Council decided that she met the city’s residency requirement, and that modern civil rights legislation trumped the charter’s requirement that the mayor be a “free white male.”
The old river town in southeast Clay County has about 300 residents and 197 registered voters, including 34 in Ward 3.
Only two people cast ballots on Tuesday for the unopposed candidate in Ward 1. Nobody voted in Ward 3.
“We’ve never seen this happen,” said Patty Evans, Democratic director for the Clay County Board of Election.
The city’s pre-Civil War charter may settle the issue, as it says the incumbent Selle can hold office until “another party is successfully elected and qualified,” Wolcott said.
“But I’m not happy that nobody voted in an election,” he said.
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http://www.kansascity.com/115/story/59970.html
Posted on Thu, Apr. 05, 2007
reprint or licenseprint email
Digg itdel.icio.usAIM
Missouri City candidate fails to vote, and so does everyone else
Town held an election and nobody showed up. Now town tries to figure it out.
Just one vote separated Missouri City alderman candidate Joe Selle from a clear victory.
His own.
Selle said he simply forgot to vote, and so did everyone else in Ward 3.
So does a zero vote total for an unopposed candidate mean no decision and a vacant seat? Confused officials wondered about that Wednesday.
“I saw them down at the school” polling place, Selle said of Tuesday’s election, “but it never occurred to me that’s what they were there for.”
Selle, 42, a professional musician, filled a recent Ward 3 vacancy on the City Council by appointment.
He assumed that no election opposition meant the next term was automatically his.
“It’s pretty small-town stuff down here, man,” Selle said.
He’s right.
Missouri City operates under a unique charter approved by the Missouri legislature in 1859, said city attorney Steven Wolcott.
In 2001, the city’s first woman mayor survived a post-election legal challenge and was sworn in. But only after the City Council decided that she met the city’s residency requirement, and that modern civil rights legislation trumped the charter’s requirement that the mayor be a “free white male.”
The old river town in southeast Clay County has about 300 residents and 197 registered voters, including 34 in Ward 3.
Only two people cast ballots on Tuesday for the unopposed candidate in Ward 1. Nobody voted in Ward 3.
“We’ve never seen this happen,” said Patty Evans, Democratic director for the Clay County Board of Election.
The city’s pre-Civil War charter may settle the issue, as it says the incumbent Selle can hold office until “another party is successfully elected and qualified,” Wolcott said.
“But I’m not happy that nobody voted in an election,” he said.
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