First, there was the council race that ended in a dead heat and raised the question, unanswered by law: How to break the tie?

Then, a few years later and a short drive down the road, came the write-in campaign that exposed another hole in another town's election code - forcing a judge to declare a winner nearly three months after the last ballot had been counted.

In Carroll County, the details of running a town election have been shown to count.

And that's why election codes have been tinkered with in recent years in half of Carroll's eight municipalities - including, most recently, Manchester.

There, the town council voted unanimously last week for a charter change to specify procedures for write-in votes.

The vote came five months after a Carroll judge overturned the results of Mount Airy's mayoral election, ruling that officials wrongly discarded more than 250 write-in ballots that listed only the eventual winner's last name.

Manchester officials acted to remove any ambiguity in how the town would look at write-in ballots.

The charter amendment requires that voters write both the first and last name to have their choice counted.

"It wouldn't have come to our attention if not for Mount Airy," said Manchester Mayor Christopher B. D'Amario. "Once you're aware of a problem, you should avoid trying to make the same mistake."

In New Windsor, officials know that elections can end in a way that no one contemplated.

Breaking a tie

In 1999, a race between two candidates for the town council ended up in a tie - a first in town history, and a result for which town law provided no remedy.

A decision was made to allow the town council to vote to break the deadlock.

Later, after a Baltimore lawyer researched the issue and found that the most popular device for breaking ties throughout the country was to flip a coin or draw straws, the town amended its charter to allow for runoff elections.

In Mount Airy, a problem - some would say a big mess - arose last spring, when voters supporting challenger James S. Holt in the mayoral race found their write-ins discounted because they wrote in a last name only.

The incumbent mayor was sworn in, but the challengers went to court and won when a judge decided that the votes were clearly meant for Holt.

"It was pretty stressful," said Holt, who was not a party to the lawsuit because he said he didn't want to look like a sore loser.

He believes that he won, however - because the only other "Holt" eligible to be elected was his wife.

The only others from that area with that last name were his two too-young children, a murderer in prison and a couple who no longer live in town.

In September, Mount Airy responded to the questions raised by the election by changing its ordinance covering write-in votes.

Under the changes, sample ballots are to contain the first and last names of registered write-in candidates, which would be published in the local newspaper.

But if a voter - despite these changes - still marks a ballot incorrectly, a majority of the town's Board of Supervisors of Elections must attempt to ascertain his intent.

Oddly, the topic has never come up in New Windsor - the last Carroll town whose election results led to an uproar that brought in the lawyers.

The New Windsor incident involved a tie vote for a council seat, with no provision for a runoff election or other remedy.

Sam Pierce, now mayor, was the challenger who tied for that seat in 1999, when the town council chose to break the tie by appointing the incumbent.

Then, town officials hired a Baltimore attorney to help them choose a remedy.

Last year, the council amended the town charter to allow runoff elections. Under the new provision, all eligible voters could participate, not just those who voted the first time.

And it even anticipated a second tie, in which case the race would be decided by lot.

Write-in rules

Later in September, the town of Hampstead passed an ordinance to set rules for write-in candidates, said Susan Hansen, the town operations assistant.

It requires that both the first and last names be written legibly to be counted.

Officials in the town of Sykesville plan to review the provisions for write-in ballots, said Laura Lindberg, the town's clerk-treasurer and secretary to the board. With an election in May, Lindberg said, "I'm sure something will be done before then."

Likewise, Westminster officials plan to take a look at their law as a result of the Mount Airy election, said Thomas B. Beyard, a city official.

No recent action has been taken on election law in Union Bridge or Taneytown, officials there said.

In New Windsor, Pierce said no changes have been discussed in the wake of the Mount Airy election. Pierce, who in 1999 was the council candidate who lost out when the tie was broken, said, however, that the issue might deserve a look.

"We haven't done anything on a write-in vote. We probably should," Pierce said. "It seems like every election, there's some hot button that comes up."