So when resident and bar owner Randy Wooten ran for mayor of the town, he was shocked when he received not a single vote in the final count -- not even his own.

His wife, Roxanne, said she voted for him too, so he should have had at least two votes, they say.

Yet when the votes cast on the touch-screen electronic voting machine were tabulated after the polls closed, two other candidates had received 18 votes each, and Wooten not a one.

For the past week, Wooten, 51, has been asking local election officials what could have happened, and he has attended several meetings, including an official recount of the votes. But so far, he said, no one has been able to explain the situation, which on a smaller scale reflects a similar situation in Sarasota County, Fla. There, some 18,000 voters were not recorded as casting ballots in a Congressional race.

Wooten's wife has her own idea of what went wrong.