2012 senior class photos
2012 West Carrollton graduation
Home of the Week
Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2010 > March > 07
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Mike DeWine foe baffled by ballot ruling
The battle for the GOP nomination for attorney general might not be over after all.
The campaign of Hardin County attorney Steve Christopher is trying to figure out how the final tally released on Friday, March 5, by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner showed that Christopher turned in just 638 valid signatures to get on the May primary ballot for the Republican attorney general nomination, said Mark Lucas, a campaign spokesman.
It takes 1,000 signatures to qualify and Brunner ruled that only former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine of Cedarville turned in enough signatures to get on the ballot for the GOP attorney general nomination. Brunner made the determination on which candidates qualified based on information provided to her by county boards of elections.
A work sheet from Brunner’s office showed that county boards of elections received just 788 total signatures from Christopher’s campaign and 638 were valid. Christopher turned in petitions with a total of 2,700 signatures, said Lucas.
In an e-mail on Saturday, Christopher’s wife, Jill Christopher, said the campaign is determining what step to take next.
“At this time, we are optimistically waiting to review and audit the signatures. We have not received any official word regarding the validity of the signatures. We will be conducting an internal audit and verification to vet the signatures we did obtain,” she said in the e-mail.
“At the time that we vet the signatures and obtain official word on why the signatures were rejected, we will make a determination and advise everyone as to the direction we will take.”
Jeff Ortega, a spokesman for Brunner, said he was not aware of the situation but that Brunner’s office would try to respond to any questions on Monday.
