diff --git a/app/assets/javascripts/frontend/form-validation.js.coffee b/app/assets/javascripts/frontend/form-validation.js.coffee
index 0a2bcc8a6..bb0fc41ed 100644
--- a/app/assets/javascripts/frontend/form-validation.js.coffee
+++ b/app/assets/javascripts/frontend/form-validation.js.coffee
@@ -140,7 +140,8 @@ window.FormValidation =
   validateWordLimit: (question) ->
     textarea = question.find("textarea")
     wordLimit = textarea.attr("data-word-max")
-    normalizedContent = textarea.val().replace(/ /g, ' ').replace(/\n/g, ' ');
+    textareaValue = textarea.val() || '';
+    normalizedContent = textareaValue.replace(/ /g, ' ').replace(/\n/g, ' ').replace(/\s+/g, ' ').trim();
     wordCount = normalizedContent.split(" ").length
     if wordCount > wordLimit
       @logThis(question, "validateWordLimit", "Word limit exceeded")