As noted earlier, Flint, Michigan, election officials told candidates they had until April 28 to file petitions to be on the non-partisan ballot for city office this year. But then it was learned that the correct deadline was April 21. Last week it was thought that one Mayoral candidate had submitted a petition by the actual deadline, but now he has been told he didn’t have 900 valid signatures, so there are no candidates’ who have qualified to appear on the ballot. Michigan permits write-in votes in all primary and general elections. See this story.
If there are no candidates, the August primary will be cancelled. Write-ins will be permitted in the general election.
Mays had filed quire early (April 6), and then continued to turn in additional signatures. In an earlier article he says that he was unsure if he had enough signatures by the deadline. Everyone else apparently turned in everything a few days before the deadline announced by the city clerk.
The deadline was increased to 15 weeks before the primary in 2012, beginning with the 2014 elections. But I suspect that the error was simply one of skipping a week when counting on a calendar.
I didn’t find anything on the SOS website that gave the election calendar for 2015, other than a ling to the Michigan Election Code.
What a joke! This is what happens when you have election officials who look at their job as just a job, and not a responsibility. I hope the Courts will order all candidates who at least filed to be placed on the ballot – regardless of whether they made the minimum number of signatures required.
This is why I favor filing fees over petitions. A $1000 dollar fee is not too high for a serious candidate for a city-wide office in a city the size of Flint, Michigan. But $500 should definitely be the lowest for the city-wide fees.
And the laws need to be changed, making city election officials responsible for erroneous information they give to candidates. A year in the local jail, would get the attention of them all.