The D.C. Board of Elections is telling voters that former councilmember Michael Brown is no longer in the running for an At-Large seat on the D.C. Council, but it isn’t preparing for the possibility—albeit distant—that he might still win.

Brown dropped out of the April 23 At-Large D.C. Council Special Election in March, but given the timing, it was too late for the board to take his name off of the ballot. As such, voters next Tuesday will be faced with a familiar name on the ballot—he’s run a number of times for various offices—that isn’t actually in the running.

The elections board confirmed today that it would be placing signs in all 143 precincts next Tuesday informing voters of that fact, but beyond that, it isn’t doing much. (Signs have been up at an early voting site in Judiciary Square.) “[The board] does not research hypothetical situations,” said General Counsel Kenneth McGhie through the board’s spokeswoman. This is at odds with what the board told told the City Paper last week, saying that it was reviewing city laws just in case Brown won.

Not to cast aspersions on the board’s legal wisdom, but it seems that it would certainly want to prepare for the possibility that a guy with citywide name recognition could pull off a victory even while having formally withdrawn, no matter how slim the chances. Elections experts we’ve spoken to said that it doesn’t seem that D.C. laws address the issue; other states have had to deal with candidates who died but still managed to win election to office.