Cost of Write-In Votes

In light of the results of this week’s 6th District primary, I feel compelled to write this diatribe against frivolous write-in candidacies. Self-described “inner-city missionary” Don Stillwell’s candidacy served no purpose beyond showcasing his preening sense of enlightenment, but the trifling 146 votes that he garnered deprived the rightful winner of her victory (by .06 of a percentage point!) and seriously hampered legitimate efforts to remove an incumbent whose voting record on environmental and growth issues frankly stinks.

While it’s obviously true that Stillwell had the right to run, (the Constitution guarantees our right to pursue any number of silly self-indulgences), this particular exercise in self-aggrandizement will cost our financially strapped city $150,000 to conduct a runoff election from which Stillwell himself will be excluded. I’d like to suggest to this magus-in-his-own-mind and others like him that the money might have been better spent. (Say in the inner city?)

WARREN MILLER, KATHY MILLER, San Diego