It's a hurdle to overcome, no doubt, but a feature of the eSlate electronic voting machines in TX-22 provides some assistance to mitigate the damage.
A straight-party Republican voter in TX-22, and one who neglects to enter a write-in candidate for the U.S. House, eventually gets to the summary pages of all the candidates selected by their straight-party vote. On their first summary page near the top, printed in red letters, will appear the phrase "No Vote" on the line for the U.S. House race.
Hopefully, that will prompt some who know of the write-in race to return to that part of the ballot and write in Shelley Sekula Gibbs. I realize it's not good, but at least it provides some hope of catching some missing Republican votes for that race.
I may be blinded by optimism, but I have the strange feeling, which gets stronger each day, that SSG may actually win this race. Here are the reasons:
1. The surveys can’t account for the unusual circumstances. We all know how the committed Democrat and Republican will vote—the Democrats select “D” and the committed Republicans have been waiting to write in “Shelly Sekula Gibbs” for months. However, no one really knows how the uninvolved, but generally conservative, voter will react. This is a district that in 2004 went Bush about 63%.
2. The write-in process is different from what we have seen before because there is no Republican candidate and the computer will tell the voter that he has not voted in the CD-22 election. [See Post 168 above for an excellent explanation.] I wonder how many people will take the time to go to a voting booth, sign up to vote, and be so careless to not know that they have not voted for one of the two key races in the area [the other race being for Governor]?
3. Dr. Shelly’s name, along with the other write-in candidates, is written on a page inside each booth.
4. Working the wheel is kind of fun and much easier than I would have thought. I had much more trouble finding parking than voting.
5. The RNC is spending a ton of money on television spots introducing Dr. Shelly, and those adds end with a 10 second review of how to work the voting wheel. Frankly, the voting instructions seem to make the advertisement more interesting. I think most of the 63% that voted for Bush know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat.
6. My final key factor. Lampson has as much tv spots as Dr. Shelly, and this makes me think of two things: one, if the race was a lock, why would he spend the money; two, each time he mentions Dr. Shelly, he is helping Republicans overcome the lack of name recognition.
Again, maybe I am being very optimistic, but I get the feeling that this race is at least tied, and certainly not a lock for Democrats.