Got Candidates? Two Bath County Districts Have No Candidates For School Board – Now What?

Warm Springs, VA – In Bath County, no candidates have filed to run for School Board in the Millboro and Warm Springs Districts. So without candidates, what happens now? Bath County General Registrar, Charles Garrett.

“Well, there’s always an election whether we have candidates or not,” says Garrett.

With no candidates for those two districts, voters will have the option of writing in names when they go to the polls.

“There are already a number of people that I’ve heard that have announced that they are going to campaign as write-ins,” says Garrett. “You can write in anyone who meets the qualifications to run for the office. They have to be a resident of the state of Virginia for the previous year, have to be a registered voter and they have to be a resident of the district in which the office is.”

After the election, officials will count the write-in ballots and whoever has the most write-in votes in each of those two districts will be offered the position, if they qualify. But that may not be the final step in the process. Those winners have the option of saying no. If that happens, officials work down the list of write-in candidates.

“If we end up at the end of the election with no candidates accepting or winning one or both of those districts then another process kicks in,” says Garrett. “If there’s a majority of the school board elected, as it seems there would be, they would appoint from the list of candidates an interim candidate and then there would be a special election next year to fill the seat.”

Voters can write in any name for the Millboro and Warm Springs School Board seats, as long as that person qualifies. It does not have to be someone who has campaigned as a write-in. But anyone who campaigns as a write-in candidate, will have to meet all state campaign finance rules, including filing the candidate financial report.

“It’s very important if you are going to campaign as a write in candidate that you pick a name that meets the same guidelines that the balloting names do,” says Garrett. “Basically let people know what name they should write in and how it’s spelled.”

“Because the decision as to whether this vote counts for you or not will be determined as how close it is to your name. You wouldn’t want to lose votes because someone put in your nickname and everybody else put in your full name or vice versa.”

All guidelines for write-in candidates are available in the Registrar’s Office at the Bath County Courthouse in Warm Springs.