Every vote will matter in the North Carolina Senate race, which could in turn determine which party controls the upper chamber next year. So the news that three write-in candidates will have their votes counted in the November election, including something of a foreign-language speaker, should not be overlooked.
The Fayetteville Observer reported that three candidates had received the state’s approval to have their votes counted if they are written in on the ballot. One of them, David Waddell, is a former town councilman from Indian Trail — who also speaks Klingon, the fictional language from the the Star Trek universe that has become a favorite of nerdy linguaphiles everywhere.
Waddell (no known relation to the Klingon walking around in the California state capital above) resigned from his town council seat with a note written in Klingon earlier this year. He sounds like he hopes to add a little levity to the race.
“I realize that that may be a turnoff to some people,” Waddell said. “But I think there are many who can understand that there is a place in politics for humor.”
The other two approved write-in candidates are a replacement-glass company owner and a former state legislator with a nasty history with Republican Senate candidate Thom Tillis, the current state House speaker, the Observer reported.
Former state Rep. John Rhodes lost his seat in the state House in 2006 when Tillis beat him in a 2006 Republican primary, according to the Observer. He has already been a thorn in Tillis’s side this year, accusing him of violating state ethics rules, the Charlotte Observer reported in March.
According to TPM’s PollTracker average, Tillis currently trails Sen. Kay Hagan (D) by 1.1 percentage points.
