The Oregon Secretary of State’s office is not likely to challenge the candidacy of five city council candidates who filed their election documents in an improper order, State Elections Division John Lindback said.
But one candidate said he might contest the May 21 primary election ballot with a lawsuit — a challenge he might very well win, Lindback said.
Ward 5 candidate Jim Hale, who is running against one of the five candidates in question, scheduled a Tuesday press conference to discuss the possible lawsuit but canceled after rethinking his position. He said he would announce his intentions today.
If Hale files a suit and is successful, the ballot or the election itself could be altered in court.
The controversy began when candidates David Kelly, Gary Papé, Kevin Wells and Jennifer Solomon filed the required 25 voter signatures with the city recorder’s office before gaining the city’s approval of the signature form. This violated a provision in the city’s elections manual that requires candidates to obtain prior approval of signature sheets before circulating the forms, Lindback said.
But the city recorder’s office, stating that its staff gave candidates inconsistent advice, accepted the signatures and processed the candidates filings. Papé is running for Ward 5, Wells for Ward 4 and Solomon for Ward 6. Kelly is running for Ward 3, the seat representing the University area.
Ward 6 candidate Frank Wiley also gathered signatures before the city approved his petition form. Instead of turning in his petition early, as the other five candidates had done, he completed his paperwork and sought new signatures.
When the city discovered that five of Wiley’s signatures were invalid, his candidacy was temporarily denied. But on March 28, county elections officials, citing advice from the city, placed Wiley on the ballot.
“Wiley had collected signatures the same way as others on the ballot, but he had received conflicted information,” county elections official Annette Newingham said. “He was playing by the rules as he thought they were.”
City attorney spokesman Jerry Lidz said his staff is looking into the legality of these decisions but will stand behind them.
“The effort was to make sure nobody suffered as a result of inconsistent advice,” he said.
Claiming that the candidates were given unfairly favorable treatment, Hale wrote a complaint to the secretary of state’s office asking the agency to remove the five names from the ballot. The agency’s elections division is still investigating the ballot but will probably not intervene because the election is so near and because election officials are uncertain about the legal issues surrounding the controversy, Lindback said.
Dissatisfied with the state’s response, Hale said he is considering taking the issue to court.
“We ought to have one standard, not more than one,” he said.
Whether or not Hale files a lawsuit, the city will revise its election filing rules in coming months to “make very sure this does not happen again next year,” Lidz said.