Two Canton mayoral candidates off May ballot; two Massillon council hopefuls also out

CANTON − The Stark County Board of Elections ruled Tuesday that Canton Democratic mayoral hopefuls, one Canton council candidate and two Massillon council candidates are not eligible for the May primary ballot.

The Board of Elections, made up of two Democrats and two Republicans, voted unanimously to back its staff's finding that the five candidates failed to submit candidate petitions with the required number of valid signatures.

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Common reasons, the staff found signatures to be invalid: the person signing lived outside the city or ward for the contest; the person signing was not a member of the party of the candidate; the person was not registered to vote; the person provided an address that didn't match their address on their voter registration record and signatures were found not to be a match with the signature in their voter registration record.

If none of the five prevail in a challenge of the board's decision, the number of Democratic candidates for Canton mayor declines to four from six; the number of Republican candidates for at-large council member goes down to one from two; Massillon Ward 1 councilman Mark Lombardi, a Republican, will not face a non-write-in Democratic challenger and Massillon Ward 4 councilwoman Jill Creamer, a Democrat, will not face a non-write-in Democratic primary challenger.

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The candidates kept off the ballot are:

• Willis Gordon, Democratic candidate for Canton mayor, who is the Ohio NAACP's veterans affairs chairman. The Board of Elections staff said he needed 50 valid petition signatures. He submitted 82 signatures, but the staff said 40 of those signatures were invalid, leaving him eight short of the required number.

• Matthew S. Harman, Democratic candidate for Canton mayor, a former U.S. Postal Service letter carrier. He submitted 77 signatures. The staff found 35 to be invalid, leaving Harman eight short of the requirement of 50.

• Leon Gerig, Republican candidate for Canton council member at-large, a house manager for a company that provides day services to adults with developmental disabilities. He submitted 50 signatures, and only 48 were deemed valid.

• William E. Walker, Democratic candidate for Massillon council member for Ward 1. He submitted 32 signatures on a petition where 25 valid signatures were required. But nine were invalidated, leaving him with 23 valid signatures.

• Joyce L. Phillips, Democratic candidate for Massillon council member for Ward 4. She submitted 40 signatures when 25 valid signatures were required.

Gordon declined to comment Tuesday morning, saying he wanted to hear first from the Board of Elections.

Harman, a former candidate for Congress, said he was disappointed. He had expected a friend to gather dozens of petition signatures. But then she failed to do so, forcing him to scramble at the "last minute," at grocery stores to get signatures for his petition from people he didn't know.

Gerig said, “I’m not challenging the decision. Secondly, we gave it our best shot. I got a late start in getting signatures. We did our best effort, but I knew I was cutting it close but I’ll abide by the decision."

In Massillon, Walker, a first-time candidate for council, said he planned to meet with Board of Elections staff to try to resolve the issues.

Phillips said she would talk with the Board of Elections staff. She said in many cases she helped the person signing the petition to register to vote before they signed her petition.

Canton Mayor Thomas Bernabei, a Democrat, is not seeking re-election.

Other moves by the Stark County Board of Elections

The Board of Elections did certify the five other Canton mayoral candidates for the May primary ballot. The Democratic candidates are: Kimberly D. Bell, 58, a paralegal; William V. Sherer II, the Canton council president and business manager for Ironworkers Local 550; Bill Smuckler, a longtime Canton councilman at-large and past mayoral candidate;and Thomas West, a former three-term state representative and former Ward 2 councilman. The lone Republican Canton mayoral candidate is Roy Scott DePew.

Barring a successful challenge to the Board's ruling by Gerig, Kerry Jane Dougherty will be the only Republican candidate for council member at-large. While there's the chance of a write-in candidate filing, Dougherty was already set to automatically advance to the general election in November for one of three at-large council member spots. The top three candidates in each party primary are listed on the November ballot.

Seven Democrats, two of them incumbents, were seeking the three top spots for Canton council member at-large to make it to the November election. The Board of Elections decided to certify for the May ballot one of those Democrats Doug Prestier, a former candidate for Canton treasurer, after he dated his candidate petition Dec. 23, 2023 instead of Dec. 23, 2022. The board members decided the error was a typo that did not mislead voters signing the petition. The other Democratic council at-large candidates are incumbents James Babcock and Louis Giavasis as well as former Canton Ward 2 Councilman Nathaniel Chester III, former Canton councilman Joe Cole, Nicholas J. Rinaldi and Crystal Smith.

The candidate filing deadline was Feb. 1.

In the past, some candidates kept off the ballot due to an insufficient number of petition signatures have successfully persuaded the Board of Elections to reverse its decision. Often, submitting signed, notarized affidavits by people stating that they had signed the candidacy petitions led to the board certifying the candidate to the ballot.

Reach Robert at robert.wang@cantonrep.com. Twitter: @rwangREP.

Correction: A prior version of this article misspelled the name of Democratic Canton mayoral candidate Kimberly D. Bell.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Stark Board of Elections vote to keep 5 candidates off May ballot