17 July 2022 — 1319 mdt
Should defeated GOP primary candidate Jack Fallon
run a write-in campaign for Flathead county commissioner?
By James Conner
Kalispell resident Bill Cox, writing in the Flathead Beacon, thinks Fallon, who lost the GOP county commissioner nomination by 40 votes, should mount a write-in effort.
If Flathead County is to be known as anything more than an ignorant backwater, we must start by replacing Commissioner Pam Holmquist with a more enlightened commissioner. Holmquist’s leadership has earned the county a string of lawsuits that continue to drain our coffers. Jack Fallon, who came very close to defeating Holmquist in a four-candidate Republican primary, should consider a write-in campaign for November.
A Fallon for Commissioner write-in campaign would not be a trivial undertaking. If he got going today, he would have only twelve weeks to raise a lot of money — I think he would need at least $250,000 — and build an organization to deliver to voters in September and early October the case for electing him and the instructions and aids for writing in his name.
One common write-in aid is a clear sticker with adhesive that the voter places on the ballot so that the black dot on the sticker covers the marking circle next to the write-in line and the sticker’s printed name sits on the line for write-ins. The technique is legal, but it could result in counting machine jams and give the ballot counters heartburn.
Fallon would need to make these cases:
- Why after losing the GOP primary his write-in campaign for the same office is a legitimate second attempt to win, not a sour grapes revenge candidacy.
- Why Republicans should not support their party’s nominee. He cannot win with just Democratic votes.
Roughly two of three GOP primary voters wanted a candidate other than Holmquist. In a ranked choice election, she probably would have lost the election. But a Republican voter who did not vote for Holmquist is still a Republican voter, and much more likely to vote for the Republican who won the primary than to vote for a write-in candidate who lost the GOP nomination fair and square.
I doubt that Fallon, a heart attack survivor in his late sixties, will seriously entertain arguments that he should become a write-in candidate for commissioner and run what would be a frantic, arduous, and quite likely futile campaign.
Although I doubt Fallon will run a write-in campaign, I suspect he may receive dozens or more write-in votes in November.