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Petitioners and many others believe that a court action is necessary because the democratic process was hindered due to the Board of Elections preparing to move buildings during the counting procedure. Throughout the ten days, which is the amount of time granted by law, the Board was overloaded and had a skeleton staff due to the 4th of July holiday, prompting them to recruit warehouse workers to help with the count in order to meet the deadline. In addition, they procedurally always double check a petition counters work, but on this occasion there was no such effort.
During a preliminary double check and investigation conducted by volunteers for the petition, numerous and gross errors were found. More than one person who have been active voters at the same Columbus address their entire adult lives were marked as not being registered. Others who became new registered voters as they signed the petition were not counted because of their voter cards being withheld and not processed, or lost in the computer network. In fact, a dozen volunteers and personal friends of volunteers did not even get voter confirmations until early August, over 2 1/2 months after their cards were turned in. One 27 year-old advocate was denied his right to register because the Board of Elections claimed that he was not old enough. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Activists were shocked to learn that there is no appeals process for initiatives in the City of Columbus. Since the establishment of the Charter, an appeals process never existed. What this means in short is that the City and the Board of Elections have ultimate control over what issues and candidates are placed on the ballot. For initiative petition, it is the responsibility of the City who, ironically, does not have the means to verify signatures. They pass the responsibility on to the Board of Elections, who then verify the signatures as a matter of courtesy. When alleged fraud occurs, they play the game back and forth, each denying accountability. They win the game when their opponent gets tired and gives up. It has been going on like this since 1933. We’re not giving up.
Setting more obstacles, the City went as far as to unofficially lie to all of the active signature campaigns seeking the November ballot: The Darby Creek, Racial Profiling, and Marijuana Decriminalization petitioners were blatantly mislead about when the deadline date was for filing. For example, the City Clerk told the marijuana petitioners that the deadline was June 29th, which clearly did not make any sense according to Charter. He then took a couple months off. Upon many phone calls for approximately eight weeks requesting a deadline from the City Attorney, the acting City Clerk and the marijuana petitioners finally were given a deadline of July 3rd. The Darby Creek workers stuck their attorney into it and were told, after July 3rd, that the deadline was July 11th. When the acting City Clerk was asked about the discrepancy, she replied “I didn’t know, sorry. I just did what the City Attorney said.” Approximately one week before the grand August vacation of city officials, and basically in the clear of dealing with the matter for a little while, the real City Clerk came back. Apparently, he was out on surgery. Must have been precision surgery.
City Council recessing the month of August and their refusal to convene by proxy for a special meeting did not help anyone. The deadline set by the Board of Elections was August 23rd, and verified petitions must be on the agenda of the City Council beforehand. Therefore petitioners in Columbus lost 1 1/2 prime summer months to collect signatures.
So, now you know why all 3 petition campaigns turned them in at different times (Darby Creek will turn theirs in for May ballot by press time). We were all led in different directions by authorities.
Before the recess, we asked the City to order a recount based on the preliminary evidence. The acting City Clerk, thwarting a hot seat, asked the Board of Elections to verify signatures as good ones were found that were marked as bad. Guy Reese, the Director of the Board refused. There is nothing in the law that makes him do as the City instructs. His refusal is enough to justify asking for his resignation.
The only other step left for local marijuana activists is to sue the city for denying the public a right to appeal and to provide a full recount remedy. The outcome could reinvigorate our increasingly frail democracy, of which both the City and the Board of Elections do not seem to care much about.
The court action will take place as soon as enough money is raised to hire a mandamus specialist. When this happens, a large well-organized demonstration will also take place to address concerns about the lack of the peoples’ access to government. It will be formed by a broad coalition of people wanting more power. It is the inalienable right of every citizen that is a registered voter to place an issue onto the ballot, no matter what the controversy. Until then, slowly but surely, we will keep on recounting.
If the marijuana issue makes the May ballot and passes, all criminal sanctions will be removed from misdemeanor marijuana laws in the City of Columbus. Although some may argue about whether or not a City can do that, we feel very strongly that the application of Home Rule, as provided in the Ohio Constitution, make it a legally binding effort.
Contact For A Better Ohio at 265-8683