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ALEXANDRIA, Va — The Office of Voter Registration and Elections provided its 79-page write-in assignment file for Tuesday's City Council special election to The Alexandria Brief on Wednesday afternoon. It contains 1,026 ballots — each one a voter who rejected all three candidates on the ballot in favor of someone, or something, else.
They range from earnest choices to cartoon characters, from sitting politicians to Soviet dictators. The most-written-in identifiable Alexandria political figure was not an Alexandrian at all, but a candidate who hadn't been on the ballot in two months. The most-written-in name overall was Mickey Mouse.
All 1,026 remained "Unresolved" in the file's 4:15 p.m. run, awaiting formal adjudication by the city's electoral board. Given Sandy Marks's 11,167-vote margin of victory, no plausible tally will change the outcome.
The primary comes back
The most striking pattern in the write-in file involves candidates who lost to Sandy Marks in the February 21 Democratic firehouse primary. Three of the four show up as write-ins on the April 21 general election ballot:
- Roberto Gomez, who finished third in the primary with 876 votes (22%), was written in at least five times across the 79 pages — appearing more frequently than any other identifiable Alexandria political figure.
- Tim Laderach, the primary runner-up with 947 votes (23.8%), was written in at least twice.
- Charles Sumpter, who finished fourth with 467 votes (11.7%), was written in at least three times.
- Cesar Madison Tapia, fifth with 112 votes, does not appear clearly in the file, though one heavily struck-through entry may reflect an abandoned attempt.
In all, at least a dozen write-ins went to the four Democratic primary losers — a small number in absolute terms, but distinct from the next-largest category of "named" write-ins: voters who wrote in candidates already on the ballot. Marks herself appears once, as "Sandy O. Marks." Frank Fannon appears at least twice. Alison Virginia O'Connell appears at least once.
Former mayors and one current councilman
Several former Alexandria officials were scattered across the file:
- Former Mayor William "Bill" Euille appeared at least five times.
- Former Vice Mayor Amy Jackson, who left council at the end of 2024 after losing the mayoral primary to now-Mayor Alyia Gaskins, appeared at least six times.
- Former Mayor Justin Wilson appeared once.
- Former Mayor Allison Silberberg appeared once.
One current council member also received a write-in: Abdel-Rahman Elnoubi, who was elected to an at-large seat in 2024 and is already on the dais.
Former Del. Kirk McPike — the councilman whose January resignation to serve in the Virginia House of Delegates triggered the special election in the first place — does not appear to have been written in a single time.
The protest vote
Dozens of voters used the write-in line to register a form of disengagement. Variations of "None," "None of the Above," "N/A," "Abstain," "Pass," "No Vote," "Nobody," "No one," "Me," "Myself," "Don't care" and "Who cares" appear throughout the file. At least one voter wrote simply "Not them." Another: "A better candidate." Another: "Someone not crazy." Another: "Don't know any of the candidates." One voter wrote "Who are these people?" Another wrote "I am not represented." Another: "Not why I'm here today."
A small cluster of ballots used the write-in line to signal party: "Republican," "A Republican!," "Any Republican," "Any Conservative," "Republican Candidate." Frank Fannon ran as an independent after serving on council as a Republican from 2009 to 2012, it is unclear whether these ballots are best read as complaints about his independent designation or simply as preferences for a party that no longer fields candidates in most Alexandria races.
Issue-based write-ins were rare but pointed. One voter wrote "Repeal the Personal Property Tax." Another wrote "Leave Braddock" — a reference to the Braddock Road Improvements project that became a flashpoint in Fannon's campaign and is the subject of a May 16 council appeal. Another wrote "Reparations for ADOS slaves." Another: "Information was fabricated." Another: "Not a communist." And one voter wrote out the phrase "May we find peace in revolution."
One voter wrote "Myself:" followed by her actual name. Another — apparently unhappier with the process — used the line to swear at the council itself.
The absurd vote
The write-in file contains the usual heavy rotation of fictional candidates. Mickey Mouse received at least 11 write-ins, more than any real Alexandrian on the ballot or off it. Donald Duck received at least six. Daffy Duck got one. Batman got two. Optimus Prime, Yoda, ALF, Yosemite Sam, Fozzie Bear (as "Fozzi Bear"), "Barf Simpson" and the cartoon monkeys "Bingo and Bongo" each got one. One voter wrote in "My Cat Prospero." Another wrote in Harambe, the Cincinnati Zoo gorilla killed in 2016. Another wrote in Vermin Supreme, the boot-wearing perennial presidential candidate. One voter, drawing from Spanish idiom for a hypothetical nobody, wrote in "Juan de los Palotes." Another simply wrote "Yo Ma-Ma."
The dead vote was eclectic. George Washington was written in twice. Robert E. Lee was written in once. Gaius Julius Caesar was written in once. Shakyamuni Buddha was written in once. Jesus Christ was written in at least twice. One voter wrote in "Iosip Djugashvili" — Joseph Stalin's birth name.
The living famous were well-represented. President Donald Trump received at least eight write-ins, including one entry of "DJT." Former President Barack Obama received at least seven; former First Lady Michelle Obama received one. Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who had rallied against the redistricting amendment the night before the election, received at least five. Gov. Abigail Spanberger — who championed the amendment that Alexandria backed with 78.89% yes — received one write-in for the City Council seat. Vice President J.D. Vance, Sen. Marco Rubio, Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Chip Roy, Sen. Ben Sasse, Vladimir Putin, Kanye West (twice), Nick Fuentes, former Pennsylvania congressman and 2020 presidential candidate Joe Sestak and the wrestler Cody Rhodes each received write-ins. So did a number of plausible-sounding names whose connection to Alexandria politics is unclear — "John Doe" and "Jane Doe" variations appeared several times, as did "Someone else."
One voter wrote in the Rev. Garrett Kell, pastor of Del Ray Baptist Church, explicitly identifying him by his pulpit on the ballot.
Where the write-ins came from
Write-in rates varied across the city's 32 precincts, ranging from 1.15% at Naomi L. Brooks School to 4.63% at F.T. Day School in the West End. Other precincts with notably high write-in shares included Del Pepper Center (3.80%), Lee Center (3.75%), Fire Department Headquarters (3.71%), Potomac Yard (3.71%) and Lyles Crouch School (3.60%). The lowest write-in shares came from Patrick Henry Recreation Center (1.43%) — also Marks's strongest precinct, where she took 74.16% — along with Tucker School (1.55%) and the Charles E. Beatley Library (1.63%).
Fannon carried four precincts outright: Old Town South (58.56%), Trinity (50.32%), Lyles Crouch (44.22%) and Old Town North (39.66%). Marks's strongest precincts were Patrick Henry Recreation Center (74.16%), NOVA Arts Center (68.08%) and John Adams School (65.74%). O'Connell — who finished third citywide — hit her ceiling at the Charles Houston Center in Parker-Gray, where she took 25.35%.
Separately: the undervote
The write-in file only counts voters who wrote something on the council line. A bigger group did not.
Marks won Tuesday's race with 53.37% of the vote — 24,869 to Fannon's 13,702 and O'Connell's 6,999, with the 1,026 write-ins bringing the council race to 46,596 total votes. But 51,256 ballots were cast in Alexandria overall. The gap — 4,660 ballots — represents voters who turned in a ballot but didn't mark, check or write anything in the council race.
That's 9.1% of all ballots cast, more than 4.5 times the number of write-ins, and roughly two-thirds the size of O'Connell's entire vote total.
The undervote almost certainly reflects the unusual geometry of Tuesday's ballot. The statewide redistricting amendment drew national attention and gubernatorial-level turnout. In Alexandria, 78.89% of voters backed the amendment — a 40,310-to-10,787 margin that made the city one of the strongest yes-vote jurisdictions in Virginia, where the measure passed statewide by 51.3% to 48.7%. For thousands of Alexandrians, the amendment was the reason they came to the polls; the council race was something they simply didn't weigh in on. Only 159 ballots skipped the amendment question. More than 4,500 more voters weighed in on the amendment than on the council race.
What's next
Marks will be sworn in Tuesday, May 12, at the council's legislative meeting — nearly three weeks after her victory, and two weeks after the current six-member council is scheduled to adopt its FY 2027 budget on April 29. Four days after her swearing-in, she'll be seated for a May 16 public hearing that includes the Braddock Road Improvements appeal.
Her term runs through December 31, 2027.
The Alexandria Brief thanks Angie Maniglia Turner, Director of Elections & General Registrar, City of Alexandria Office of Voter Registration & Elections, for providing the write-in assignment file on request.
Counts of named write-ins in this story reflect a manual review by The Alexandria Brief of the city's April 22 write-in assignment file and should be read as minimums; handwriting and strike-throughs in the file mean some entries are ambiguous. The file provided on Wednesday afternoon contained 1,024 ballot images; unofficial returns from the Virginia Department of Elections reported 1,026 write-in votes. The Alexandria Brief will update the story if the Office of Voter Registration and Elections releases certified adjudicated totals that differ materially.
