Milwaukee mayor candidate claims others submitted invalid signatures
MILWAUKEE - One Milwaukee mayoral candidate wants the city to boot Acting Mayor Cavalier Johnson and State Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) off the ballot.
Activist and candidate Ieshuh Griffin, who is formally making that challenge, is still fighting to get on the ballot herself.
Inside a pizza restaurant on Capitol Drive, nominations papers for Johnson and Taylor were set out. The employee who put out the papers, who did not wish to speak on camera, told FOX6 News that a total of 11 people signed them.
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The bottom of each sheet is a certification that the person gathering signatures attests that they personally obtained the signatures.
"Lena Taylor nomination papers left on the counter. Cavalier Johnson nomination papers left on the counter, unattended. Illegal," Griffin wrote in a tweet.
Ieshuh Griffin films signature forms
"The law is clear: You cannot leave nomination papers unattended on counters, and they must be personally circulated," said Griffin. "They're not above the law. They should be in compliance with the law. These are seasoned, political opponents. They know the law.
"It's just compromising the integrity of the election and they should be disqualified."
Ieshuh Griffin
Johnson's campaign told FOX6 that they did not receive the sheet featured in Griffin's video in time, and did not submit it to the Milwaukee Election Commission.
"I think that's a question I can refer to my campaign staff. My understanding is we did absolutely nothing wrong," said Johnson. "We train all of our volunteers who work on our campaign about how to properly make sure they take in signatures."
Cavalier Johnson
Both the Johnson and Taylor campaigns have three days to respond to Griffin's challenge.
"I did see signature items in many different places, but individuals normally have them behind the registers and the person behind the register was doing it, or a person that might have been a staff," Taylor said. "In the end, we have more than 1500, regardless of any location."
Lena Taylor
That was not the case for Griffin. She was the first candidate to turn in more than the 1,500 signatures needed to get on the ballot, but hours before the Tuesday deadline, the election commission told her that more than 170 addresses were invalid.
"When we type that into multiple databases, including the city assessor's office, the properties information site, as well as the registered voters site, that is not a valid address, it doesn't exist in the city of Milwaukee," said Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall-Vogg. "Sometimes a signer will have inverted their numbers. Sometimes people just aren't comfortable giving out a real address, and so it is a fake address, but we just aren't able to validate that it's a real address."
Claire Woodall-Vogg
Griffin dropped off her affidavit, saying the addresses are valid.
"These affidavit circulations include maps and street maps and Google showing exactly where the addresses are. Postal addresses," said Griffin. "It was no need to try to disenfranchise the voters who elected me on the ballot, on nomination papers.
"If It was an issue, I should have been abreast of it ahead of time. It was no reason that other people who came after me had their signatures validated within minutes.
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Six total candidates have turned in all the necessary paperwork and validated signatures to get on the ballot:
- Milwaukee Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic
- Former Milwaukee Alderman Bob Donovan
- Acting Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson
- Milwaukee County Sheriff Earnell Lucas
- Businessman Michael Sampson
- State Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee)
The election commissioners will meet Monday to weigh the challenges and then to certify who goes on the ballot. They will also draw for ballot positions.
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