Electoral board disqualifies more signatures; independent’s petition may be out

The Madison County Electoral Board has eliminated enough signatures that independent candidate Tyler Oberkfell may not make the final ballot in November for the county board, though the final decision is still pending.

Donald Moore of Troy is the Republican candidate to represent District 2 to the Madison County Board after defeating incumbent Republican Roger Alons. Moore’s opponent is Oberkfell, also of Troy, who filed his petition to run in the November election with 273 signatures.

Moore filed an objection to Oberkfell’s petition, alleging that 55 of the 232 signatures were from people who were not properly registered. His attorney, James Craney, also alleged that some signatures appear to have common authorship or other problems.

The electoral board opted to conduct a binder check of Oberkfell’s petition against the voter registration rolls. The board consists of County Clerk Debbie Ming-Mendoza, Circuit Clerk Mark Von Nida and State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons, advised by assistant state’s attorney John McGuire.

That binder check was completed by the Madison County Clerk’s Office last week and turned over to both sides. It eliminated 43 signatures as invalid, often because the person was not registered to vote or was registered outside District 2.

As an independent, Oberkfell had a much higher threshold to get on the ballot than a candidate running with an established party. For example, Moore only needed enough signatures to equal 5 percent of the number of registered Republicans who voted in the last gubernatorial election. But as an independent, Oberkfell had to gather enough signatures to equal 5 percent of all voters in that election. That meant Moore only needed 19 signatures to get on the ballot, while Oberkfell needed 273.

On Monday, the electoral board went over every name flagged in the binder review line by line, ruling which are accepted and which are deemed questionable.

At the moment, 216 signatures remain on the petition, with 43 ruled invalid and 13 still being questioned out of a total of 272 signatures. Oberkfell needs 232 signatures to remain on the ballot, so even if all 13 signatures are approved, he would still be three votes short.

“If we get down to three or five votes and (Oberkfell) is not allowed on the ballot for such a small number, that’s heartbreaking for him and for the process,” Ming-Mendoza said. “But the law is the law. If the board rules that he cannot stay on the ballot, he needed more of a cushion than he gave himself.”

Oberkfell now has the option of getting the people whose signatures are deemed questionable to sign a notarized affidavit that confirms they signed the petition.

However, in his initial complaint, Moore only objected to 55 names. McGuire is now researching whether the board is only supposed to consider those names, or all the names deemed questionable in the binder review. If the scope was limited to those original 55 names, that would gain Oberkfell another 12 names, enough to stay on the ballot.

Just last month, a much larger petition involving a tax referendum was challenged and the same question came up. However, at that time Craney was arguing against a full binder review, stating that it was a violation of due process. That challenge was unsuccessful and the tax referendum will appear on the ballot.

In this case, Craney requested the full binder review in the original complaint filed by Moore.

The board will meet again on Friday for further argument and the affidavits, and may possibly render a final decision.

This story was originally published July 18, 2016 at 5:14 PM with the headline "Electoral board disqualifies more signatures; independent’s petition may be out."