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Lycoming County, as the Sun-Gazette reported in the Nov. 30 edition, had 144 people who received write-in votes for 34 different offices in which the electoral results were ties.
Often these "candidates" -- a term we can only use loosely as they did not choose to seek the offices by campaigning in any conventional sense -- tied by receiving a single write-in vote.
And so the county placed 100 envelopes, each with a number inside between one and 100, in a cookie tin. For each tied result, an envelope was drawn for each respective candidate. The individual with the lowest number is offered the position.
As silly as the exact methodology may seem to some, it is of course good that we have a process to resolve these stalemates.
What's far more alarming is that it comes to this in the first place.
We noted during the 2023 campaign that it is troubling when, as voters, important local offices afford us a single unopposed candidate. For our federalist government to function best and at its most responsive to constituents' needs, constituents should have real choices -- between different agendas and approaches, between different governing philosophies and ideologies, all coalesced into choices between different candidates.
That so many offices on our 2023 candidates didn't even have a single candidate -- that an office entrusted with some measure of responsibility to the public interest can be determined by a single voter -- not a margin of a single vote but by one person casting one write-in vote -- is deeply concerning.
Our political system, the envy of the world, has worked for more than two centuries and can continue to work. But for it to work, there are requirements. An engaged, educated public casting votes and members of communities willing to step forward and campaign for public office transparently on their ideas and ideals are two of the most important.
It is, again, alarming that trust in our system locally may struggle because of the deficiency in finding and fielding such candidates.