Frye ran for mayor of San Diego in the November 2004 run-off election between Dick Murphy and Ron Roberts as a write-in candidate, without having run in the primary. A plurality of voters wrote in her name, but a controversy arose when she lost the election because a number of voters did not fill in the bubble next to her written name or misspelled her name (usually spelling her last name "Fry"). If those votes had counted, Frye would have had more votes than either of the moderate Republican candidates officially in the runoff, but still far below a majority vote. Whether Frye would have been allowed to serve as mayor in any case is uncertain, as her write-in candidacy was at odds with the San Diego City Charter.
