Who Wants to Run for Local Office?

Early voting begins in just seventeen days--on Saturday, October 23. Sample ballots can be viewed at the Board of Elections website and absentee ballots are already going out to those voters who have requested them. The sad thing is that the ballots for the First Ward and the Third Ward in Hudson contain the names of people, running unopposed, who are no longer actually running.

In the First Ward, there are two and only two people whose names appear on the ballot as candidates for the two alderman seats: Art Frick and Gary Purnhagen. There were never any choices for alderman in the First Ward this year. The two people, both Democrats, who got the requisite number of signatures on their petitions got on the ballot without being primaried, and since there are no candidates from other parties running, they were certain to win. But back in July, Purnhagen dropped out of the race. Although his name is still on the ballot, voting for him would be meaningless. The ballot, as it is printed, provides voters in the First Ward with only one choice: Frick. 

Fortunately, for First Ward voters, there is someone who has stepped up and decided to run a write-in campaign. That person is Margaret Morris. So, although First Ward voters still don't actually have a choice, they are not forced to abdicate the selection of their representative in city government to the Common Council, which is what would happen if there were not a write-in candidate. First Ward voters can write in the name "Margaret Morris," easily remembered and easily spelled, at the bottom of the column farthest to the right on the ballot, in the box labeled "Write-in."  

The Third Ward is in a similar situation. Two and only two names appear on the ballot as candidates for the two alderman seats: Calvin Lewis and Ryan Wallace. As with the First Ward candidates, Lewis and Wallace got the requisite number of signatures on their petitions and got on the ballot, unprimaried and unopposed by candidates from another party. But during the summer, Lewis, who was serving as one of the two Third Ward aldermen, took a job with the Youth Department, and as a consequence, in early July, he resigned as an alderman and as a candidate for re-election. Wallace, the other candidate now on the ballot, was appointed to replace him on the Council. 

As with the First Ward, the ballot provides only one choice for the two Third Ward alderman seats on the Council: Wallace. Unlike the First Ward, however, no one has announced, not to Gossips' knowledge at least, that they are running a write-in campaign. So unless a write-in candidate emerges in the next couple of weeks, it appears that the Common Council will be deciding in January who the second person will be to represent the Third Ward.

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