Five individuals seeking offices in this November’s election won’t be on the ballot, after their nominating petitions were rejected by the board of elections — of those two are veteran officeholders.

The board of elections met on Friday and Monday to review the nominating petitions for certification for all candidates for the 2015 ballot. Each office statutorily requires a specified number of valid signatures of registered voters in the county. Besides that each petition must be filled out correctly in order for it to be certified.

Dawson-Bryant Board of Education member DeAnna Holliday put the wrong address on one of the petitions she circulated so she could retain her school board seat. She is finishing up her second term. Holliday’s home address should have been on all of the petitions. However one had the address of her business. For that reason it was rejected.

“Your petitions are deemed submitted when you file,” Mark McCown of the elections board, said. “You cannot go back to supplement or amend. There is no mechanism for that under Ohio law.”
No alterations or corrections can be made once it is filed with the board of elections, McCown said citing the ORC. “There is a specific ban on it.”

Now Dan R. Wilson and James G. Beals are the only valid candidates who filed that will run for the two openings on the board.

The petition of Rick Massey, who was seeking a place on Ironton City Council, was rejected for being incompletely filled out. Now the field for the three open seats has been reduced to eight: Ralph Huff, Charles O’Leary, Larry Wilson, Rich Blankenship, Brian Deer, Kevin Waldo, Aaron Bollinger and Charley Haney.

Three petitions were rejected for not having enough valid signatures: former South Point councilman David Classing running for South Point mayor; Marvin McCallister for Windsor Township Trustee and Christopher Perego for Fairland school board.

“An invalid signature means it doesn’t match what we have on file, they are not registered or not registered at that address,” McCown said. “Somebody moves and they don’t update their address and they put their new address, not realizing they have never updated it with the board.”

Vying for the top post in South Point are now Jeff Gaskin, Bill Patrick, Rube Allman and Michael A. Curtis. Windsor Township Trustee race only will have Donald Rigney; and Jason Gorby and John Lewis will run for the two openings on the Fairland school board.

Aug. 24 is the deadline for write-in candidates to make a declaration of candidacy. “Those races that don’t have a full slate of candidates, they can file that form and be a write-in,” McCown said. “They don’t have to file a nominating petition. But the people who were rejected cannot file as a write-in.”