Contact Person: Paul K. Ogden, Attorney at Law, 317-297-9720 (office); pogden297@comcast.net
Yesterday, Rev. Mmoja Ajabu filed an appeal of the Marion
County Board of Voter Registration's decision to exclude him from the ballot in
his bid to win the newly-redrawn 7th Congressional District.
To recap, on March 2, 2012 Rev. Ajabu turned in over 4,700
signatures to the Marion County Board of Voter Registration (MCBVR) for
review. The MCBVR certified 1,300 of
those signatures as being signatures of registered voters in the 7th
Congressional District. (A later review
revealed an additional 130 or so valid signatures were missed by the
MCBVR.) When Rev. Ajabu submitted a
second batch of some 4,421 signatures on June 26, 2012, the Directors of the
MCBVR summarily declared that the petitions, consisting of 443 pages, contained
no valid signatures whatsoever. A review
of those documents forwarded directly to the Secretary of State's Office from
the MCBVR indicate that, unlike the first batch, the second batch of petitions
were never reviewed by the MCBVR.
The Directors of the MCBVR, Democrat LaDonna Freeman and
Republican Susan Mowery are direct appointees of Marion County Democratic
Chairman Ed Treacy and his Republican counterpart, Kyle Walker. They serve at the pleasure of the county
chairmen.
A review of the second batch petitions by Rev. Ajabu reveals
they contain 2,418 signatures of registered voters in the 7th Congressional
District. A separate review by Ajabu's
counsel, while not yet complete, suggests that the second batch petitions will
total over 2,000 valid signatures when the review is completed. The two batches of petitions contain far more
than the 3,010 signatures required to be placed on the ballot as an independent
candidate in Congressional District 7.
In speaking on the appeal, Rev. Ajabu stated: "It is reprehensible that the Board
would refuse to do their job in reviewing the petitions for valid signatures. This attempt at voter suppression to keep me off the ballot will not
prosper!! I fully expect to succeed in front of the Election
Commission."
Paul K. Ogden, counsel for Rev. Ajabu, added: "While the Marion County Board of Voter
Registration has a history of letting politics intrude upon the purely
ministerial job of reviewing whether signatures are of registered voters, the
action the Directors have taken in this case cross ethical, and quite possibly,
legal lines. The Directors simply
refused to review the signatures on Rev. Ajabu's petition in a transparent
attempt to exclude him from the ballot.
I think it is very possible that the MCBVA may have been acting on the
instructions of Marion County Democratic Chairman Ed Treacy when it refused to
review the second batch of petitions which would have revealed Rev. Ajabu
easily qualified for the ballot as an independent candidate."
Ogden has served the MCBVR with an open records requests
asking for email and other written communications between the Directors (or
other MCBVA employees) and the county chairmen who appoint them to their
positions. The request was served two
weeks ago and the MCBVA still has not provided the requested documents.
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1 comment:
Inquiring minds want to know. If I read it correctly he turned in names of people not registered to vote. Now either the Board is not doing its job and checking for legal signatures or he is attempting to get a pass on illegal voters. Which is it?
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