Recall update

On July 6th TUF/the recall committee went to the recall official's office (Township Clerk) to determine why so many signatures were thrown out. We had submitted just over 1850 signatures and the recall official found 1621 valid. While that's 109 over the required number (1512) we were expecting just less than 1700 to be approved.

We knew that over 100 signatures were from people that we could not find on the voter list so we were expecting some to be thrown out. The reasons for this are mainly because some people don't realize that they have to reregister when they move and if you don't vote in two consecutive presidential elections then you are dropped from the voter list. So when we asked if they were registered, they said yes. We submitted them even if we couldn't find them on the list because we hoped that maybe the recall official could find them. In five cases she did.

We also knew that there were about 15 duplicate signatures. When you have many people carrying petitions you're bound to get some duplication. We kept them on the list because we didn't want to cross one off the list only to find out the other was thrown out for some technicality.

But we could not figure out why almost 250 had been thrown out so we examined the recall official's notes. This is what we found.

104 were not register. The same ones we couldn't find on the list, no problem here.

There was some duplication but the recall official found two that we still can't identify. Another signature was thrown out because a husband signed for his wife who wanted to sign but due to illness could not.

31 signatures were dropped because the signature on the petition "did not match" the one on record with the voter registration office in Somerset. At least on some of these it doesn't make sense because we know these people and watched them sign. We will examine them ourselves and remind the recall official that when people signed the petition they were standing and using a clipboard. We are not blaming the recall official, she is giving her opinion. Perhaps on some she is correct but we don't think it's likely.

21 were dropped because they "were not on the voter list". These differ from the 104 above because we were able to find them on the voter list. Again mistakes happen. The recall official had to go through 1850 signatures, a lot of work.

And then there were 32 that still bewilder us. These 32 were thrown out because even though they were on the voter list, the recall official was unable to locate a copy of their signature at the county office so she assumed they were invalid. This smacks of guilty until proven innocent. We believe that the burden of prove that a signature is invalid lies with the recall official and if she can't disprove it then the signature should be considered valid. No one can register without supplying a signature so if she can't find it, it must be a records keeping problem. The right of a voter to participate in a petition should not be infringed because of the difficulties of keeping 100s of 1000s of records straight.

We will be challenging 58 signatures for now and will reexamine the petitions again this week. If you are wondering why we are challenging signatures when we already have enough it's because Ms. Ritchie has pledged to check every signature herself and challenge any she thinks are invalid. While we don't think she will be successful we are leaving no stone unturned as we shift into high gear for the election campaign.

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