Elmer Fudd for monorail board? How about Noah Monorail?

Inspired by the stumbling Seattle Monorail Project, which has been collecting millions of dollars a month, thousands of voters bypassed the candidates listed on the September primary ballot. They preferred to suggest their own.

Kill the Monorail, Waste of Money and Close it Down were the candidates of choice for some of Seattle's more frustrated monorail watchers. One voter used a four-letter word to say what ought to be done with the troubled project.

"It's a time-honored tradition to add an editorial comment or two on the ballot, and frankly it adds a little bit of entertainment value for the canvassing board," said Dan Satterberg, a member of the King County panel that decides what to do with ballots that aren't filled out according to the rules.

More than 3,600 write-ins — 4 percent of the vote — were cast in the three-way race involving incumbent Cindi Laws and challengers Beth Goldberg and Stan Lippmann. It was, by far, the largest number and percentage of write-ins for any position on the ballot.

Slightly more than 1 percent of votes, or 900, were write-ins in the SMP board's other race, involving incumbent Cleve Stockmeyer and challengers Jim Nobles and Dick Falkenbury.

Dow Constantine, who serves on the county election canvassing board, said the contest for Laws' seat may have drawn more write-ins than Stockmeyer's because it appeared first on the ballot.

"Perhaps the person only has one clever quip for the write-in line and they use it up on the first line they come to on the ballot," Constantine said.

But monorail supporter Peter Sherwin, who was promoted by the weekly newspaper The Stranger as a write-in candidate for Laws' position, undoubtedly accounted for some of the write-ins.

Election officials don't plan to count the numbers of each write-in entry because there weren't enough to alter the outcome of the election. Many of the write-ins would have been set aside in any event because they weren't real names.

Some apparent supporters of the project used the write-in line to let Mayor Greg Nickels know what they thought of his decision to withhold street permits for the monorail.

Their ballot choice for mayor? Monorail.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105