Candidates must run as write-ins

By Megan Kelley
Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
CLARKSTON — On Aug. 12, six of the seven candidates who filed applications to run for seats on the city council, including three councilmember seats and a mayoral seat, were informed by Oakland County that their applications were disqualified and their names will not appear on the General Election ballot on Nov. 5.
The six candidates that were disqualified were current city Mayor Sue Wylie, incumbent councilmembers Peggy J. Roth and Mark David Lamphier, and newcomers Al Avery, Lily McLean and Lisa Patercsak. Newcomer Erica Jones is the only person who filed that was not disqualified and will be the only person whose name will appear on the Nov. 5 ballot. Because Mayor Wylie would have been the only person running for the mayor seat, there will be no name listed on the ballot for mayor.
Now, the six disqualified candidates must file to run as write-in candidates if they would like to be considered for any of the four available seats.
The disqualifications came after the filing deadline had passed and the reasoning consisted of a variety of filing errors including but not limited to: not checking a necessary box, forgetting to fill in the jurisdiction or not listing the office they were running for.
“The candidate has an affidavit that they have to fill in with their information. That’s where everybody in Clarkston had an issue. This is Michigan election law; it has your name, the office you’re running for, whether you’re partisan or nonpartisan, if you’re partisan, what party you’re in, is the election primary or general, how you want your name on the ballot, a check mark on the Michigan Finance Act and then it all needs to be notarized,” Wylie said. “You turn that paper in, the city turns it over to the board of elections and that’s where the six of us ran into a problem, there was something wrong with everyone’s affidavit. For me, it was (that) I forgot to check the box that said general election.”
Wylie is expected to file as a write-in and she anticipates everyone whose petitions were also rejected will file as a write-in candidate as well.
“I want to have this done before Sept. 16 because that’s when absentee ballots go out and I want to make sure I get my name out there and I think all the other candidates want to do the same thing,” said Wylie.
Michigan election law states that if someone would like to file as a write-in, they have until 4 p.m. on the second Friday immediately preceding the election to file. From there, voters must write the candidate’s name in the available spot on the ballot and must spell the name exactly as it appears on the file submitted by the candidate to the state.
While there have been ongoing issues in the city with the clerk position, Wylie maintains that that had nothing to do with the rejected petitions or the fact that candidates were not informed until after the deadline.
In the beginning of August, the city Clerk Catherine Ashley submitted a letter of resignation after being in the position for less than a month. In the weeks following her resignation, the city has discussed avenues toward providing more support for the person in the clerk position. The city has also posted the job listing but has not yet hired someone to fill the clerk role.
In a communication from city Manager Jonathan Smith, he noted that the city will continue to remind voters of this as starting dates for both absentee voting and early voting approach.