Overview:
Covered by Documenter Tucker Handley (notes)
Candidate shake-up
The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections discussed dropping seven candidates from November election ballots. Five withdrew their petitions and have filed as write-in candidates, according to board officials:
- David Kozinski for Bratenahl Village Council
- Gerald Medinger for Hunting Valley Village Council
- Linda Giersz, Eva Karras, and Dorene Kray for Newburgh Heights Village Council
Walter Stewart, running for Warrensville Heights City Council, is an additional write-in candidate.
De-certified candidates
The board voted to de-certify the two other candidates at its Aug. 21 meeting: Jason Hubbell for the Brooklyn Board of Education and Tony Walker for Richmond Heights City Council. Board staff became aware of issues with seven candidates’ applications on Aug. 11, said Board Director Anthony Perlatti in the Aug. 16 meeting. The candidates left a portion of their applications blank, which disqualifies them.
Board Member Inajo Davis Chappell said Hubbell emailed her, saying the Board of Elections’ website pre-check deemed his application valid. She said the board had not enforced this issue before and asked if it had discretion to certify the candidates. The board’s general counsel said he did not believe the board could do that.
Documenter Dean Jackson has more coverage of the issue from the Aug. 21 meeting.
This post was updated with a link to Documenters notes from the Aug. 21 meeting.
A ‘fatal error’
Walker spoke on Aug. 16 about the part of the application in question — a section about signatures for the nominating petition. Nothing in the application process suggests that leaving that section blank would be a “fatal error,” Walker said.
Valid ballots
Election officials will officially count 3,663 provisional votes in Cuyahoga County’s tally for the Aug. 8 special election. The Board of Elections approved staff to open and count the provisional ballots that were deemed valid. Voters can use provisional ballots to vote when their eligibility is in question. Board staff found 786 provisional ballots were invalid, and those will not be counted. The special election featured only Issue 1, which sought to stiffen requirements for residents and advocacy groups wanting to amend Ohio’s constitution and would have raised the threshold for approval of an amendment to 60%. Ohio voters rejected the proposal. The yet-to-be-certified Cuyahoga County results show about 76% of voters voted no.
This article was corrected to include the accurate number of valid provisional ballots in the Aug. 8 special election, which is 3,663. The board rejected 786 provisional ballots.
Did you know the Board of Elections is looking for a new operations center? Documenter Clarence Hood has more.
