Six city council candidates in Clarkston disqualified from general election ballot
CLARKSTON, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - Six of seven candidates in Clarkston who filed applications to run for open seats including city council and mayor, have been disqualified from the upcoming General Election after mistakes on their application.
Oakland County told the candidates last month that their names would not appear on the Nov. 5 ballot.
Clarkston City Manager Jonathan Smith says the affidavit form stating a candidate's intent to run for council was missing information on not one but six candidates' applications.
"Several people missed some questions or didn't fill it out entirely. Wasn't intentional, it was just an oversight on their part," said Smith.
The impacted candidates are current city Mayor Sue Wylie, incumbent councilmembers Peggy Roth and Mark David Lamphier, and newcomers Al Avery, Lily McLean and Lisa Patercsak.
Newcomer Erica Jones is the only candidate who filed correctly and will be the only person whose name will appear on the ballot.
Some of the issues on the paperwork include not mentioning what position the candidate was running for, the date of the election or the name of the city.
Now, the only option is for these candidates to run as a write-in candidate.
"It will be incumbent upon them to advertise, to communicate to the residents and voters that I am a write-in candidate, and here's how I spell my name, by the way. Because if the actual voters deviate too far from the name or they abbreviate it, they may not be selected or may not be approved by the county," Smith stated.
Incumbent council member Peg Roth has served on the council for eight years. She's one of the candidates who made multiple errors.
"The responsibility was totally mine, and I screwed up not having proofed something before I turned it in," said Roth.
Roth plans to move forward as a write-in candidate but is frustrated that the former clerk didn't notice these gaps.
"Normally the clerk certainly had time to have gone over and then called me in for corrections or would have forwarded on, Oakland County would have caught it. Unfortunately, she put it on her desk and waited for the other candidates to send theirs in or drop theirs in, and by then, it was too late," Roth said.
Pushback Smith says that is not the city's responsibility.
"It's up to the individual running for that seat on council to make sure they filled it all out. They can ask us questions, but here's the thing…when they've brought the form to us it's already been notarized by a notary. After it's notarized, nobody should be changing that form," said Smith.
If these candidates choose to proceed with the election, they must submit their form as write-in candidates by Oct. 25.
Smith says he encourages candidates to submit those forms quickly.
"There's plenty of time. But here's the danger in waiting until the end…absentee ballots will start going out as early as next week. So, people getting an absentee ballot in the mail, they don't know that John Doe is running for council, so they just put in some other name, or they just don't vote for anybody because they don't see anybody's name on the ballot. They only see that one person who submitted it accurately. So, it's important that people submit their intention to run by submitting the form well before October 25," Smith said.
