Local Dem challenges Green Party candidate's petitions

The petitions of the third-party candidate in the race for this area's state representative have been officially challenged, according to documents provided by the Athens County Board of Elections.

The board received a written protest last Monday from Athens resident Jonathon Metcalf, a Democrat according to Board of Elections documents. The protest asserted that some signatures on the petition papers of Green Party candidate Ty Collinsworth of Nelsonville were either fraudulent or incomplete.

Collinsworth is challenging state Rep. Debbie Phillips, D-Athens, for Ohio's 92nd House district seat. Phillips also has a challenge from former Ohio State Patrol Athens Post commander Mike Hunter, a Republican from Athens.

In his protest, Metcalf claims that several petition signatures and voter registrations were "altered or written by the same hand."

"One or more of the signatures must be fraudulently signed by other electors," the protest states. "Each entire part-petition should be invalidated."

The protest further claims that some dates on the petitions were altered to conceal fraudulent signatures, and in other cases that the petition lines do not include full addresses, proper dates, or are otherwise invalid. Some signatures, Metcalf claims, do not match voter registration records and should be invalidated.

Due to these matter, Metcalf's protest states, "all registrations collected by Ty Collinsworth should be invalidated due to possible fraud." Also, the protest states that all part-petitions containing one of the signatures of these registrations should be invalidated.

Board of Elections Director Debra Lee Quivey said that the board will hold a protest hearing this Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. in the Common Pleas Court Room A in the Athens County Courthouse.

She said that when the office gives out petitions, they tell all the candidates not to allow anybody to sign for anybody else.

"That's the only thing that will invalidate a whole part-petition," she said. "A part-petition is one page. In this case, he has four pages"

If the board finds that somebody signed for someone else on one of the part-petitions, she said, then that one sheet would be thrown out, not the entire petition.

In Metcalf's protest, he states that communications regarding the protest should be directed to his legal counsel, Megan Kelley of the Hayman & Kelley Law firm in Columbus.

Several calls attempting to reach Kelley on Friday and over the weekend went unreturned.

Kelley also represented Phillips in a 2008 complaint filed with the Ohio Elections Commission regarding her campaign for state representative that year. Phillips won her first term in 2008, beating Athens County Auditor Jill Thompson with 50.47 percent of the vote to Thompson's 49.53 percent.

Phillips acknowledged Sunday that Kelley acted as an attorney in her case against the Meigs County Republican Party. Phillips said that Kelley is an attorney for the Ohio House Democratic Caucus. While Phillips said she has met Metcalf, over six months ago, she said he is not affiliated with her campaign. Phillips said she doesn't know whether Metcalf is affiliated with the Ohio Democratic Party. With regard to the complaint itself, Phillips said the situation is in the hands of the board at this point.

Calls to Collinsworth seeking comment on Friday and over the weekend also went unreturned.

Collinsworth, a Dayton native who has attended Hocking College, has so far stated he is running because the integrity of the environment needs to be a bigger concern for the government, and so voters have what he calls a "true progressive voice."

"For far too long the Democrats have campaigned on environmental issues and caved to lobbyists in Columbus," Collinsworth said in a release announcing his candidacy, referring to her support for coal mining near Burr Oak State Park.

Collinsworth also said that Phillips had "disregarded environmental concerns and publicly backed the dirty coal-fired AMP Ohio power plant in Meigs County."

The Ohio-based private company scrapped plans late last year for its plant, citing prohibitive construction costs. Supporters of the plant said it would have been a development boon to the region in terms of job creation.

Hunter, the Republican in the race, said that it's hard enough these days to get people to run for public office, and that as long as Collinsworth hasn't done anything illegal, then he doesn't have a problem with Collinsworth's candidacy.