The Pawpaw: Mayor 2022 – Kloiber drops to third as write-in votes are counted

Lexington, KY (Satire)–Fayette County Clerk Donald W Blevins, Jr. announced a surprising new development in Lexington’s Mayoral election results today. “After reviewing the first batch of results, I noted that while 104,652 votes were cast for Fayette Sheriff, only 94,443 votes were cast for Lexington Mayor. Anyone living in Fayette County can vote for both, so it seemed kind of weird that over 10,000 people would choose not to cast a ballot for our chief executive.”

Blevins did a little digging and discovered that many voters had in fact cast votes for Mayor, but they were not recorded in preliminary totals because they were write-in votes. “We don’t count write-in votes for a race if no write-in candidate has registered for it. By law we still have to include a space for a write-in, just to mess with people, but we don’t count those votes unless the write-in candidate has actually filled out a form and paid a $50 fee.”

No write-in candidate had filed for Lexington Mayor, but the diligent Blevins decided to tally up the votes anyway, “for the lulz.”

Blevins announced his findings at a hastily organized Wednesday press conference. “It would appear a group of pranksters organized an effort to write in ‘Turd Ferguson’ for Lexington Mayor,” he said sternly. “We counted almost 10,000 votes for him that came in last night, and once all the late UK and Transy ballots came in, he was sitting at 28,636 votes, which was enough to overtake Kloiber for second place.”

Blevins noted that Kloiber, who spent well over $20 of his personal fortune for each vote he received, will still be reflected as the “Official” runner-up in County Clerk records, but as of press time, 6th District Congressional Candidate Geoff Young (D) had filed litigation demanding the votes be counted for him.