houston: In the midst of a hard-fought campaign for control of the US Congress, a bizarre race for one crucial seat in Texas may be decided largely by the laziness of voters.
When powerful Republican Tom DeLay stepped down from his seat in June amid accusations of corruption and an ethics investigation, it was too late for his party to get another name printed on the ballot.
As a result, President George W. Bush's Republicans are hoping voters will take the time to “write in” a candidate on the ballot whose name is long and hard to spell.
“As I tell my husband, I may be a little more trouble, but I'm worth it,”the candidate, Shelley Sekula Gibbs, said at a recent fundraiser. “You just have to take a little more time.”The Republicans are trying to fend off a challenge by the opposition Democrats, who need to pick up 15 seats to gain control of the 435-member House of Representatives. DeLay's seat used to be seen as a sure thing for Republicans.
But DeLay was forced to resign his seat representing the outskirts of Houston, Texas, after he was indicted for conspiracy and money laundering. His chummy relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has been jailed on fraud charges, was also a factor.
Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to improperly giving gifts and making illegal campaign contributions to legislators. DeLay denies any wrongdoing.
Voting for DeLay's Republican replacement is further complicated by the district's decision to switch to electronic voting machines called eSlates.
Voters will not actually write Sekula Gibbs's name on their ballots in next Tuesday's election. Instead, selecting a write-in candidate requires turning a wheel to choose each letter on a keyboard pictured on a computer screen.
“We're still trying to educate the public about how to use the eSlate in general, much less this issue,” said J.R. Perez, the elections administrator for Fort Bend County, which includes about half of the 22nd district. “People are going to have to be patient.”But voters in Texas tend to be less than patient. If they show up at the polls at all, they often push one button to vote a straight ticket for all of the candidates on the ballot in their party.
Since Sekula Gibbs is not on the ballot, she will not benefit from a straight Republican ticket vote.
This is good news for her Democratic competitor, Nick Lampson, who served in the House of Representatives from 1997 to 2004. He was voted out of office after his ninth district in Texas was redrawn under DeLay's influence and became majority Republican.
Although the 22nd district is also majority Republican, pundits say Lampson will probably win DeLay's old seat because of the quirky circumstances.
Election organizers are already bracing for delays in ballot counting, as inevitably some voters will fail to spell Sekula Gibbs's name correctly.
In an echo from the disputed 2000 presidential vote, when Florida ballots were examined for “hanging chads,” a committee will review write-in misspellings to divine “voter intent.”The write-in issue aside, Sekula Gibbs is not the strongest of candidates and does not generate much enthusiasm among Republicans, according to Richard Murray, a political science professor at the University of Houston.
“She was the Republicans' third choice,” he said. “If they had been able to get a name on the ballot, it's doubtful she'd have ever gotten the nod.”Sekula Gibbs has received minimal financial support from the National Republican Congressional Committee, though both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made appearances on her behalf.
Sekula Gibbs, who is a practicing dermatologist, is also not a popular figure on Houston's City Council, where she has served since 2001.
Nine of the council's 15 members walked out of a recent council session when Sekula Gibbs, responding to a police officer's death at the hands of an illegal alien, reaffirmed her call for stronger border security, one of her campaign themes.—AFP
