Count me among the people who are dispirited by the governor's race. Thus, The Sun's suggestion that a ticket featuring the candidates for lieutenant governor, Democrat Ken Ulman and Republican Boyd Rutherford (or vice-versa), would present a far better ticket than pairing Mr. Ulman with Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown or Mr. Rutherford with Larry Hogan ("That's the ticket," Oct. 17). This possibility raised my spirits considerably.
Unfortunately, a call to the Baltimore City Board of Elections quickly threw cold water on that idea. I was told that if I were to write in Ken Ulman and Boyd Rutherford for governor and lieutenant governor, my vote would not be counted and would not appear in any official tally. It would simply be an invalid vote. According to the person at the board, write-in candidates have to be certified. They must file to run as write-in candidates, have a committee and a treasurer.
This seems to be a totally cockamamie system. The idea of a write-in vote is that if you don't like the candidates who are running, you should be able to vote for anybody you choose. The state legislature should address this issue in the next session. In the meantime, may I suggest to Messrs. Ulman and Rutherford that they register with the Maryland Board of Elections as write-in candidates.
Giulio Venezian, Baltimore