Voter Registration Drive at Farmers Market Accidentally Registers 30 Pounds of Heirloom Tomatoes

MAPLE COUNTY — The League of Women Voters’ registration drive at the Saturday farmers market was a triumph of civic engagement and a minor disaster of paperwork, after volunteers accidentally registered 30 pounds of heirloom tomatoes alongside 184 actual voters.

The confusion began when the registration table, positioned between the tomato stand and the honey vendor, began accepting forms from a line that volunteer coordinator Jess Moran later admitted was not so much a line as a cheerful cluster. Among the forms submitted: three under the name Brandywine, two under Cherokee Purple, and one particularly detailed registration for a tomato identified only as Big Boy.

In our defense, Moran said, the heirloom people are very passionate, and when someone thrusts a tomato at you and says he wants to vote, your first instinct is to hand them a clipboard. She has since implemented a new rule: registrants must possess both a pulse and a valid address, with tomatoes qualifying under neither.

The county elections office, notified Monday, processed the 184 legitimate registrations without incident and flagged the 31 produce-related forms for what a spokesperson called administrative review. The tomatoes have been removed from the voter rolls. Big Boy’s provisional ballot application was denied, though the spokesperson praised its penmanship.

The tomato farmer, Dale Huxley, was mortified. He said his customers got carried away by the spirit of the market and that the Brandywine registrations were meant as a joke that got completely out of hand when the League’s stamp came out. He has donated 20 pounds of tomatoes to the League’s next bake sale as an apology, which the bake sale committee accepted with what its chair called delicious forgiveness.

Despite the produce incident, the drive was the League’s most successful ever: 184 new voters, 60 address updates, and a record number of first-time registrants under 25, many of whom registered while holding tote bags full of kale. The League credits the location, the weather, and what Moran calls the irresistible momentum of a really good market day.

New procedures are in place for the next drive: a sign reading HUMANS ONLY (SORRY, TOMATOES), a volunteer stationed at the front of the line with the sole job of species verification, and a firm policy that all produce must remain at least ten feet from the clipboards — which, per the new standardization, are the regulation 9-by-12 size.

The League’s next registration event is scheduled for the county fair, where organizers are already bracing for what Moran calls the livestock question. The 4-H club has been notified. The clipboards are ready.