I’ve said that the petition process for the City of Dayton is flawed for many reasons- and now we can add one more: it appears you can name anyone to your nominating committee, with or without their consent, as long as they are a registered voter in the city:

The law director today responded with a written opinion that could doom the protests.

” … It is the opinion of the law department that a petition must only contain the names of five registered electors of the city in order to be valid,” City Attorney John Danish said. “There is no requirement in the charter that any or all of the nominating committee members must consent to being named in the petition.”

Greene and Ealy have both asked that the mayor’s petitions be thrown out and their names be added to the ballot.

Based on the law director’s opinion, Harsman believes the protests could be a moot point. However, the board of elections will meet at 8 a.m. Tuesday to review the protests and the law director’s findings.

via More protests filed regarding McLin campaign.

So, it looks like the ballot will stay the same, with Gary Leitzell and myself as the only challengers. Considering you can run for Congress with only 50 signatures and no “nominating committee” it’s time to throw these charter rules out- and join the rest of the State with the standard petition process used for every other office.

From now on, just for laughs, every challenger should just make the entire City Commission their nominating committee so it’s guaranteed not one of the problems when you turn in your petitions. The Commission members are guaranteed registered voters.

I’m pretty sure that if Gary or I had been the ones with a person on our nominating committee raising a protest- our petitions would be ruled invalid. “Some animals are more equal than others” if you remember your George Orwell and “Animal Farm.”