You know it's election season when your mailbox begins to be saturated with election flyers.

Perhaps you've heard of some of the candidates running for races in your area. You may be a political junkie and know all of the candidates' names, their parties and their positions. You may not know who's running at all — and you may not even know that a write-in candidate could keep you from voting for someone to represent you.

Think about that: A write-in candidate could keep you from voting for someone to represent you.

How?

It's actually a strategy in partisan politics. This year, Florida's primary election is Aug. 30, and the general election is Nov. 8. The primary is when members of a party vote for their own candidates, who will then go on to meet opposing party candidates in November.

In all partisan races during a primary, you can vote in that election only if you are a member of that party, and you can only vote for members of your party.

Except there's this thing called the universal primary. That's when a particular race has no opposition from the other side.

In August, there are eight universal primary races in Central Florida — four Republican, four Democrat. This means that in those races, no member of another party, nor any "NPA" (no party affiliation) candidate, is running. So all voters can cast ballots in those primary races, regardless of party.

Here's where the power of the write-in candidate comes into play.

If a candidate announces — and qualifies — to be a write-in candidate for a partisan race, that means that they will be on the ballot as a "write-in" in November, joining candidates from parties as well as NPA candidates. This means that they have forced the primary election to be "closed."

In other words, Republicans vote in Republican races in August, Democrats vote for Democratic candidates in August, and the winners of those races move on to November.

In this situation, what happens if there are only Republican candidates as well as a write-in candidate who's waiting for November? The simple answer is that Republicans will vote in Republican races, but anyone who's not registered Republican has no one to vote for in August.

In partisan terms, Republicans will vote for somebody from their party, and that candidate will move to the November general election to face a write-in candidate.

Keep in mind that write-in candidates aren't actually listed by name on the ballot. It's up to the voter to know the write-in candidate's name and write it correctly on their ballot. The odds are incredibly against a write-in candidate getting enough votes to defeat a named candidate.

Knowing this, parties will sometimes enlist a person to be a write-in candidate. This works to the party's favor, because only members of their party will vote, and nonmembers can't be spoilers in the primary election.

Therefore, when you receive your ballot for November, you'll see one candidate from a party and a write-in candidate, and you'll be voting in an election that already has a foregone conclusion.