The petitions were signed, the signatures were all valid, the money has been paid. But next Tuesday, the Montgomery County Board of Elections will declare them invalid. Forget the will of the people- who signed the petitions. Forget the idea of democracy.
I put the date of turn-in in the Declaration of Candidacy- instead of the date I “declare” on the petition.
It seemed logical to me, that until I turned in the petition and it is approved, I’m not a candidate.
However, the date I write on a piece of paper- takes precedence over the signatures of the 68 people who signed.
Government by Gotcha rules once again.
I can volunteer to create a PDF form that guarantees no candidate ever fills out the petition incorrectly again. However, that, my friends is too logical for the people in power.
Had I scratched out the 8 part of 18- the petitions would have been legal.
So, Dr. Mark MacNealy has filed. We will see if his petitions get approved.
Mike Turner will get another hall pass.
My deepest apologies to those who signed.
why didn’t i get asked?
Well, kinda get what you pay for. You want a larger, more complicated, several layers of government. With that comes rules that don’t make sense.
Shrink all government. Eliminate stupid shit like this. If you want to run for office, simple. Name, address, position wanting to run for, small processing free. DONE.
Small, simple government is better for “most” of the people. We need to eliminate most services from the government, afterall they don’t serve most of us anyway.
Sorry to hear that.
If you don’t mind my asking, what’s the deal with Turner? OH-03 only has a PVI of R+5, and the district had a Democrat for 22 years. Most people in that situation on the R side had a pretty rocky 2006 and/or 2008, but Turner just coasted through. Is he particularly well liked in the district? Or a “good fit” on some issue or something? Or were his Dem opponents unusually poor candidates?
It certainly appears that the resurgence of the Democratic party is on hiatus for 2010 and quite possibly beyond, so if he couldn’t be dislodged in 2006/08 he’s probably going to be able to hold that seat for quite a while.
@DJW- the district was gerrymandered- and the last royalty to occupy the seat was bought off with an “international post.”
The local Democratic Party is inbred with elected officials who are all terrified of losing their seat- and unwilling to help their own lambs who are willing to go to slaughter.
I’m really sorry to all that I screwed up on this. Had the form been done by a competent information architect- and built as a legal PDF- none of this would have happened.
If you ask me you could get much more good done in the state senate
^
I was thinking county commission, becuase of Esratis interest in regionalism.
Fcuk em.
I’m sorry to hear this. Oh, well.
How did you find out? I figure that, when you turned it in, the person told you that you’d filled the wrong data in that slot. But if so, why wouldn’t they just let you scratch it out and put the correct date in?
@Zak- because they have no interest in letting the people decide who should be on the ballot- and because it would be tantamount to a crime. It says the petitions must be signed and dated before signatures are collected in an indented note- well above the area that I signed.
However, there is a difference when you are the candidate circulating their own petition- you make a verbal contract with every voter you talk to. Apparently that doesn’t count.
I am sorry to hear that David.
And you’ve been through this process how many times?
Come on, David—you’re not a neophyte.
If it were your first time around and you were caught off guard, you’d have a right to object.
But you’ve been down this road before. You know the drill.
Could/should the system be improved? Of course.
But when you know full well that they’ll use every trick in the book to disqualify you— and you still don’t pay attention to detail— whose fault is that?
Looks like Mark MacNealy is starting to work on his name recognition. I got an e-mail this morning saying Mark MacNealy was now following me on Twitter, and I thought, who’s Mark MacNealy? I went to his Twitter page — http://twitter.com/MacNealy2010 — and said, oh! he’s the latest person to try to unseat Mike Turner. I guess MacNealy’s petitions got approved if he’s bothering to build a base on Twitter. His website — http://macnealy2010.com — is just a placeholder for now.
@David L. Yep- he’s on the ballot- and doesn’t stand a chance in hell. Turner would have to do something really bad to lose.
Hey, David E, looks like you’ve got another chance to run against Turner for Congress this year. See this DDN article, “Democrats seek new candidate to run against Turner,” which says MacNealy’s no longer running and there’ll be another Democratic primary in mid-July.
Be very, very careful with your petitions.