Mollis' office says last successful legislative write-in was in 1990

As reported earlier, state Representative Jon Brien hopes to avoid the usual losing fate of candidates who’ve waged write-in campaigns for the General Assembly.

Chris Barnett, the spokesman for Secretary of State Ralph Mollis, says the last successful legislative write-in came in House District 69, the seat now held by Representative Ray Gallison of Bristol.

In the 1990 HD69 race, there were no candidates on the ballot. Neither Democratic incumbent Mark W. Dailey nor any other candidate collected the signatures of enough HD69 voters to qualify to appear on the ballot. That forced Dailey to wage a write-in re-election campaign against two other write-in candidates. He retained his seat with 290 votes followed by Donald O. Reilly and Pamela McCarthy, who were also Democrats. HD69 represented Cumberland.

Another Bristol guy, Doug Gablinske, ran an unsuccessful write-in effort in 2010.