By Sam Wildow
TROY — During a special meeting held on Saturday, the Miami County Board of Elections reversed its previous decision regarding the candidate petition for Piqua Mayor Kris Lee to appear on the November ballot.
Last week, the board denied a petition for Lee, who is currently the 3rd ward commissioner on the Piqua City Commission and the mayor of Piqua, due to Lee having an insufficient number of valid signatures on his petition. He collected 73 signatures and needed 50 signatures in order to qualify, but Lee only had 46 valid signatures. A number of the signatures were rejected due to the names being printed, instead of signed in cursive, on the petition.
On Saturday, the board recinded that decision and unanimously approved Lee’s petition for the Nov. 2 ballot after Lee submitted five affadavits from people whose signatures had been deemed invalid on Lee’s petition due to their signatures being printed. The affadavits confirmed with those voters it was their intent to sign Lee’s petition.
“I should have known that you needed signatures and not necessarily people printing, so I would have had everybody do signatures and this would not have been an issue,” Lee said to the board.
The board examined the affadavits and the signatures presented before later approving Lee’s petition to appear on the ballot.
“It would appear to me the signatures on the affadavits are genuine,” Long said. “And I find the testimony of Kris E. Lee convincing and accurate.”
Lee will be running against Nolan Campbell on Nov. 2.
“I think it’s good for voter turnout when you have two candidates,” said board member Audrey Gillespie, adding it was one of the board’s goals to get as many people to vote as possible. She said later it was also the board’s goal “to get as many candidates approved as legally possible.”
Also on Saturday, the board approved a contract in the amount of $5,179.44 with American Way for three truck rentals for the November election.
