Apr 10 2009
Harry Stonebraker Voted Mayor Again
Mr Harry Stonebraker has just been voted as Mayor of Winfield, Missouri for the fourth time. Apparently he won a landslide victory with over 90% of all votes cast.
This one fact might mark out the occasion as being a special event.
A slightly more unusal reason to celebrate his achievement might be that, at the time of the vote, Mr Stonebreaker had been dead for several weeks!
I do wish his family and community every blessing in the times that come, but it did make me wonder how a dead man is voted into office?
Apparently this is not without precedent – both Patsy Mink and Mel Carnahan were also on the ballot papaers for election after their death.
The reasons given are varied – that the official deadline for replacing a candidate has passed – but surely such dealdines can be renegotiated in the exceptional event of a candidates death? Maybe the candidate is kept there as a sign of respect to their memory or because the party to which they belong can’t actually nominate a replacement before the election is held…
And what do you do when the dead candidate actually wins?
Well, in Winsfield, they’ve scheduled another election – next year.
What do you think would happen here in the UK?
