Request By:
Mr. Charles E. Parnell
Chairman of the Board
43 West Crescent
Woodlawn, Kentucky 41071
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of September 21 in which you relate that the sixth class city of Woodlawn will have no candidate's name on the ballot for board of trustees because of a mix-up in the filing deadline. A petition was tendered on September 15 due to misinformation given the candidates that this date constituted the deadline, however, September 14 was the actual deadline and the petitions tendered were required to be rejected. The question is raised as to what procedure is to be followed for the candidates to be voted for by the electorate for the office in question.
Since the petitions in question were not filed on or before September 14, the names of the proposed candidates cannot of course go on the November ballot. However, these candidates can run as "write-in" candidates, which means simply that they can campaign as such and urge the voters to "write-in" their names on the machine for the office in question.
The election laws require each voting machine to provide space for "write-in" purposes for each office to be filled, together with the proper equipment. For your information, we are enclosing a copy of OAG 77-484 which details the various statutes relating to this subject, together with certain cases covering "write-in" procedures.