Rochester voters are in the midst of a very unusual election season, says the Rochester Post-Bulletin.
It goes back to the November election, when voters re-elected former City Council President Dennis Hanson, even though he'd died months earlier.
His name couldn't legally be removed from the ballot, and his family and supporters campaigned for his posthumous re-election because they felt that other qualified candidates would have filed for the post, if they'd have known in time that it was vacant.
And Hanson did win, getting 51 percent of the vote.
So that meant a special election for council president will be held this spring to fill the spot; four candidates filed and after a March 19 primary, two city council members, Randy Staver and Michael Wojcik, advanced to May 7 election.
Now, though, Wojcik has suspended his campaign, throwing his support to Staver.
But the election will still be held, and there's always a chance a write-in candidate could emerge, so city officials are urging residents to take the election seriously, and show up to vote.
And then after that, city officials are starting to plan for yet another election cycle — maybe a primary and general election — to fill Staver's Ward 5 council seat, assuming he wins the council presidency.