Case Title: State ex rel. Oster v. Lorain Cty. Bd. of Elections

Citation: 2001-Ohio-1605

Docket Number: 20011639

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2001-10-04T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as State ex rel. Oster v. Lorain Cty. Bd. of Elections , 93 Ohio St.3d 480, 2001-Ohio-1605] 
 
 
THE STATE EX REL. OSTER ET AL. v. LORAIN COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS ET 
AL. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Oster v. Lorain Cty. Bd. of Elections (2001), 93 Ohio St.3d 
480.] 
Elections — Applicable qualification date for signers of referendum petitions is 
date the petition is filed — Signers are qualified electors, when — 
Circulators need not be registered electors at time they circulate part-
petitions — Prohibition — Writ sought to prohibit Lorain County Board 
of Elections and city of Lorain from proceeding with the November 6, 
2001 referendum on Ordinance No. 77-01, which reclassified 
approximately 202.7 acres of land from residential to residential 
planned unit development — Writ denied, when. 
(No. 01-1639 — Submitted September 28, 2001 — Decided October 4, 2001.) 
IN PROHIBITION. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam.  On June 7, 2001, the Council of respondent city of Lorain, 
Ohio, enacted Ordinance No. 77-01, which reclassified approximately 202.7 acres 
of land from R-1A “Residential” to R-PUD “Residential Planned Unit 
Development.”  Intervening respondent, Committee for the Referendum of 
Ordinance No. 77-01, Citizens for a Better Lorain (“committee”), circulated a 
referendum petition requesting that Ordinance No. 77-01 be submitted to Lorain 
voters at the November 6, 2001 general election. 
 
Circulators of the petition applied the following procedure, which is the 
usual and customary manner in which petition signatures are obtained.  
Circulators approached potential signers and asked if the person was a registered 
voter.  If the person indicated that he or she was a registered voter, the person was 
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asked to sign the referendum petition, and, if necessary, the person also signed a 
voter registration card to indicate a change of address for the person’s registration.  
If the person advised the circulator that he or she was not a registered voter, the 
circulator asked the person if he or she wanted to sign a voter registration 
application and, if the person did, he or she was then asked to sign the petition.  
The committee submitted the voter registration applications to respondent Lorain 
County Board of Elections (“board”) before the petition was filed. 
 
On July 6, 2001, the committee filed the referendum petition with the 
Lorain City Auditor.  The petition consisted of seventy-one part-petitions and two 
thousand twenty-five unverified signatures.  On July 25, 2001, the board certified 
that the petition contained 1,584 valid signatures, which was more than the 1,562 
signatures required to place the referendum on Ordinance No. 77-01 on the 
November 6 election ballot. 
 
On August 6, 2001, relators, Thomas and Evelyn Oster, taxpayers and 
resident electors of Lorain, submitted a written protest challenging the referendum 
petition and the board’s July 25, 2001 determination that the petition contained 
1,584 valid signatures.  The Osters submitted the protest to both the board and the 
city auditor.  On August 9, the city auditor certified the sufficiency and validity of 
the referendum petition to the board.  The auditor relied upon the board’s July 25 
determination and concluded that the petition contained 1,584 valid registered-
voter signatures. 
 
In their protest, the Osters challenged the validity of three categories of 
signatures:  (1) the signatures of individuals who signed the petition when they 
were not registered electors; (2) the signatures on part-petitions circulated by 
individuals who were not registered electors at the time they circulated them; and 
(3) the signatures on those part-petitions in which the circulators knew that one or 
more individuals signing the petition were not registered electors at the time they 
signed. 
January Term, 2001 
3 
 
According to the board’s voter registration information, fifty-nine of the 
individuals whose signatures were challenged by the Osters signed the 
referendum petition before each person’s application for registration and/or 
change of residence had been deemed satisfactory and eligible by the board.  The 
board’s voter registration records further established that fifty-eight of the 
individuals whose signatures were challenged by the Osters signed the 
referendum petition before each person’s application for registration and/or 
change of residence had been filed with the board, and forty-four of these 
individuals were not deemed eligible by the board until after the July 6, 2001 
petition-filing date.  The board and the city had counted all of these as valid 
signatures because the registration applications had been filed with the board 
before the referendum petition was filed with the city auditor. 
 
Of the seventy-one part-petitions, twenty-seven contained signatures of 
persons who had informed the circulator that they were not registered with the 
board or had changed their residence since the last time they had voted.  These 
part-petitions contained a total of six hundred eighty-four signatures.  Regarding 
these part-petitions, the circulators knew that these persons’ applications for 
registration and/or change of residence had not been filed with the board when 
they were allowed to sign the petition, but the circulators believed that each 
application would be filed with the board prior to the filing of the referendum 
petition with the city auditor. 
 
Three of the petition circulators were not registered to vote until after they 
had obtained signatures.  Their applications for registration, however, were filed 
with the board before the petition was filed with the city auditor.  The Osters 
challenged the one hundred and four signatures obtained by these circulators 
before the circulators were registered electors. 
 
On August 30, 2001, the board held a hearing on the Osters’ protest, and 
at the conclusion of the hearing, the board denied the protest.  During the hearing, 
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the board’s deputy director testified that board employees time-stamp registration 
applications upon their submission to the board, and that the applications are then 
distributed to employees for processing.  At the time that the board received the 
petition here, they had employees on vacation, so some of the applications were 
not processed on the same day that they had been received.  The board authorized 
the placement of the referendum of Ordinance No. 77-01 on the Lorain ballot for 
the November 6, 2001 general election. 
 
On September 10, 2001, relators filed this action for a writ of prohibition 
to prevent respondents, Lorain County Board of Elections and the city of Lorain, 
from proceeding with the November 6 referendum on Ordinance No. 77-01.  We 
granted the committee’s motion to intervene as a respondent, and the parties filed 
evidence and briefs pursuant to the expedited election schedule of S.Ct.Prac.R. 
X(9). 
 
This cause is now before the court for a consideration of the merits. 
 
The Osters seek a writ of prohibition to prevent respondents from 
submitting the referendum on Lorain Ordinance No. 77-01 to the electorate at the 
November 6, 2001 general election.  “In extraordinary actions like prohibition 
challenging the quasi-judicial decision of a board of elections, ‘the applicable 
standard is whether the board engaged in fraud or corruption, abused its 
discretion, or acted in clear disregard of applicable legal provisions.’ ”  State ex 
rel. Baur v. Medina Cty. Bd. of Elections (2000), 90 Ohio St.3d 165, 166, 736 
N.E.2d 1, 2, quoting State ex rel. Crossman Communities of Ohio, Inc. v. Greene 
Cty. Bd. of Elections (1999), 87 Ohio St.3d 132, 135-136, 717 N.E.2d 1091, 1095. 
 
The Osters claim that the board abused its discretion and disregarded 
applicable law by denying their protest and placing the referendum issue on the 
November 6, 2001 election ballot.  More specifically, the Osters initially assert 
that the board erroneously counted as valid signatures of persons who were not 
registered as electors with the board on the date they signed the petition and who 
January Term, 2001 
5 
were also not qualified electors on the date the petition was filed with the Lorain 
City Auditor. 
Qualification Date; Statutory Construction 
 
The Osters claim that under Section 1, Article V of the Ohio Constitution, 
R.C. 3503.01, and R.C. 3503.06, the fifty-eight signatures of persons who signed 
the petition before each person’s application for registration and/or change of 
residence had been filed with the board were invalid and should not have been 
counted as valid by the board. 
 
Under the Ohio Constitution, “[e]very citizen of the United States, of the 
age of eighteen years, who has been a resident of the state, county, township, or 
ward, such time as may be provided by law, and has been registered to vote for 
thirty days, has the qualifications of an elector, and is entitled to vote at all 
elections.” Section 1, Article V; see, also, R.C. 3503.01, which provides 
comparable qualifications for electors in order to vote in the precinct in which the 
elector resides. 
 
Neither Section 1, Article V of the Ohio Constitution nor R.C. 3503.01, 
however, addresses qualifications of persons to sign referendum petitions.  In 
other words, neither of these provisions requires that otherwise qualified persons 
must be registered to vote for thirty days before they are qualified to sign 
referendum petitions. 
 
The Osters next cite R.C. 3503.06 in support of their contention that these 
fifty-eight signatures are invalid.  R.C. 3503.06 provides that “[n]o person shall 
be entitled to vote at any election, or to sign * * * any declaration of candidacy or 
any nominating, initiative, referendum, or recall petition, unless the person is 
registered as an elector.”  (Emphasis added.) 
 
The board and the committee relied on R.C. 3501.38, which specifies: 
 
“All declarations of candidacy, nominating petitions, or other petitions 
presented to or filed with the secretary of state or a board of elections or with any 
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other public office for the purpose of becoming a candidate for any nomination or 
office or for the holding of an election on any issue shall, in addition to meeting 
the other specific requirements prescribed in the sections of the Revised Code 
relating to them, be governed by the following rules: 
 
“(A)  Only electors qualified to vote on the candidacy or issue which is the 
subject of the petition shall sign a petition.  Each signer shall be a registered 
elector pursuant to section 3503.11 of the Revised Code.  The facts of 
qualification shall be determined as of the date when the petition is filed.”  
(Emphasis added.) 
 
R.C. 3503.06 and 3501.38 are both general provisions relating to 
qualifications of persons to sign petitions.  Contrary to the Osters’ claims, R.C. 
3503.06 is not one of the “other specific requirements” mentioned in the 
introductory language in R.C. 3501.38 and additional to the requirements in the 
latter statute.  Instead, from the context of the phrase, these “other specific 
requirements” are those that relate to the different types of election petitions 
involved, e.g., R.C. 303.12(H) (petitions for referendum on county zoning 
amendment); 519.12(H) (petitions for referendum on township zoning 
amendment); 731.28 to 731.41 (petitions for municipal initiative and referendum); 
3513.261 (nominating petitions); 3513.07 (declaration of candidacy and petitions 
of persons desiring to be candidate); 4301.33 (petitions for local liquor option); 
4301.333 (petitions for local option election for location of liquor stores within 
precinct); 4301.334 (petitions for local option election for community facilities). 
 
Because R.C. 3503.06 is merely a general provision relating to 
qualifications of persons signing petitions, it must be construed in pari materia 
with R.C. 3501.38(A).  State ex rel. Gains v. Rossi (1999), 86 Ohio St.3d 620, 
622, 716 N.E.2d 204, 207.  So construing these provisions, it is evident that the 
qualification date specified in R.C. 3501.38(A) is the applicable date, i.e., the 
facts of qualification of the persons signing referendum petitions are determined 
January Term, 2001 
7 
on the date when the petition is filed, not on the dates that the petition is signed.  
In this regard, R.C. 3503.06 does not specify when the person must be registered 
in order to sign a petition. 
 
In fact, as the committee cogently observes, the date that the petition is 
filed is the crucial date for many statutory requirements regarding election 
petitions.  See R.C. 3501.38(G) (circulator may strike any signature from the 
petition before filing it in a public office); R.C. 3501.38(H) (signer of a petition 
may remove signature from it before it is filed in a public office); R.C. 3501.38(I) 
(no alterations, corrections, or additions may be made to a petition after it is filed 
in a public office). 
 
Further, if anything, R.C. 3501.38(A) is a more specific provision than 
R.C. 3503.06; so, to the extent that they are irreconcilable, R.C. 3501.38(A) 
controls.  R.C. 1.51.  In other words, R.C. 3503.06 generally addresses 
entitlement to vote or sign election petitions whereas R.C. 3501.38(A) specifies 
requirements for petitions, including the qualification date for petition signers. 
 
The Osters claim that our decision in In re Protest Filed by Citizens for the 
Merit Selection of Judges, Inc. (1990), 49 Ohio St.3d 102, 551 N.E.2d 150, 
requires a contrary result.  In In re Protest, we stated in our opinion that “[a]n 
elector must be ‘registered’ in order to either vote or sign [an initiative] petition 
on the day that he or she decides to exercise the right.”  (Emphasis sic.)  Id. at 
106, 551 N.E.2d at 154.  But this statement is dicta in an opinion that specified 
that the “sole issue” was “whether a board of elections may disqualify a signature 
on an initiative petition circulated pursuant to R.C. Chapter 3519 where the 
residence indicated by a signer is not the same as the residence on record with the 
board of elections for said signer.”  Id. at 103, 551 N.E.2d at 151.  As the 
committee persuasively contends, In re Protest had nothing to do with 
qualification dates for municipal referendum petitions.  Instead, it involved a 
statewide initiative petition to amend the Ohio Constitution, and under R.C. 
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3519.15, boards of elections must count as valid signatures of these persons who 
are electors “at the time the boards examine the petition,” not on the dates the 
persons sign the petition. 
 
Therefore, the mere fact that these fifty-eight persons signed the petition 
before each person’s application for registration and/or change of residence had 
been filed with the board does not mandate their disqualification. 
 
The Osters further contend that forty-four of the signatures were invalid 
because on the date that the petition was filed, the applications for registration and 
change of address had not yet been approved by the board.  The Osters’ 
contention lacks merit. First, they did not specifically raise this claim in their 
written protest.  See State ex rel. Cooker Restaurant Corp. v. Montgomery Cty. 
Bd. of Elections (1997), 80 Ohio St.3d 302, 308, 686 N.E.2d 238, 243 (“[B]ecause 
the alleged substantive petition defects now raised by Meyer in this action were 
not specified in her protest, we need not consider these issues”).  In their written 
protest, the Osters challenged sixty petition signatures because they were not 
registered “at the time they signed the Referendum Petition” and “[n]one of the 
individuals whose names are set forth on the attached exhibit were properly 
registered as electors at the time they signed the petitions and therefor[e] were not 
permitted or qualified to sign the Referendum Petitions.”  (Emphasis added.)  The 
Osters did not specifically challenge the signatures of the forty-four persons who 
signed the petition whose applications for registration and change of address were 
filed before the petition was filed but were approved after the petition was filed. 
 
Moreover, even if this issue were properly before us, construction of the 
pertinent statutory provisions supports the board’s position that as long as 
registration and change of address applications were filed before the referendum 
petition was filed with the city auditor, and the applications were ultimately 
approved by the board, the signatures would be considered valid as of the R.C. 
3501.38(A) qualifying date, i.e., the date when the petition was filed. 
January Term, 2001 
9 
 
In this regard, our result comports with permitting electors to vote at an 
election as long as their applications are returned to the appropriate office no later 
than the thirtieth day preceding the election even though the applications are not 
processed and deemed satisfactory by the office until after the thirty-day period 
has expired.  See R.C. 3503.19(A), which provides that “[a]n otherwise valid 
voter registration application that is returned to the appropriate office other than 
by mail must be received by a state or local office of a designated agency, the 
office of the registrar or any deputy registrar of motor vehicles, a public high 
school or vocational school, a public library, the office of a county treasurer, the 
office of the secretary of state, or the office of a board of elections no later than 
the thirtieth day preceding a primary, special, or general election for the person to 
qualify as an elector eligible to vote at that election.” 
 
Our result is also consistent with the interpretation of the Secretary of 
State, who advises in a pamphlet detailing the petition process that “state law does 
not require that [a person’s] voter registration application be processed before [the 
person] may sign petitions.”  The Secretary of State further instructs: 
 
“Circulators may register persons whose signatures they are soliciting.  If 
the [person] is eligible to vote on the subject of the petition and her voter 
registration application is received by the board of elections before the petition is 
filed, her signature will be counted as long as the address on the petition paper 
matches her address on file with the board of elections.  (R.C. 3501.38, 3503.06, 
3519.15.)” 
 
As we have repeatedly held, “ ‘When an election statute is subject to two 
different, but equally reasonable, interpretations, the interpretation of the 
Secretary of State, the state’s chief election officer, is entitled to more weight.’ ”  
State ex rel. Stevens v. Geauga Cty. Bd. of Elections (2000), 90 Ohio St.3d 223, 
227, 736 N.E.2d 882, 885. 
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Additionally, this result comports with our duty to liberally construe 
municipal referendum provisions in favor of the power reserved to the people in 
order to permit rather than preclude the exercise of the power and to promote 
rather than prevent or obstruct the object sought to be attained.  See State ex rel. 
Rose v. Lorain Cty. Bd. of Elections (2000), 90 Ohio St.3d 229, 230-231, 736 
N.E.2d 886, 888. 
 
Finally, adopting the alternate view espoused by the Osters would lead to 
confusing, variable qualification dates based upon when individual registration 
applications are processed and approved by board employees.  As the evidence 
introduced at the protest hearing establishes, the important constitutional power of 
referendum reserved to the people of each municipality would then be subject to 
vagaries as unpredictable as board-employee staffing and employee use of sick 
leave and vacation time.  State ex rel. Commt. for the Referendum of Ord. No. 
3543-00 v. White (2000), 90 Ohio St.3d 212, 221, 736 N.E.2d 873, 880 (court’s 
duty to construe statutes and charters to avoid unreasonable or absurd results). 
 
Based on the foregoing, after analyzing the pertinent statutes and applying 
the rules of construction, we hold that the applicable qualification date for signers 
of referendum petitions is the date the petition is filed and, as long as otherwise 
valid registration applications are filed before the petition is filed, persons who 
sign petitions before their applications are filed are qualified electors and their 
signatures are valid.  See R.C. 3501.38(A); cf. R.C. 3519.15, which applies a 
similar standard to statewide initiative and referendum petitions. 
R.C. 3501.38(F); Knowingly Permitting Unqualified Persons to Sign 
 
The Osters next contend that the board abused its discretion and 
disregarded R.C. 3501.38(F) by not invalidating an additional six hundred and 
eighty-four signatures on part-petitions in which the circulators knowingly 
permitted unqualified persons to sign. The Osters claim that the circulators knew 
January Term, 2001 
11 
that persons who were not yet registered were unqualified to sign the referendum 
petition. 
 
R.C. 3501.38(F) provides that “[i]f a circulator knowingly permits an 
unqualified person to sign a petition paper or permits a person to write a name 
other than the person’s own on a petition paper, that petition paper is invalid; 
otherwise, the signature of a person not qualified to sign shall be rejected but shall 
not invalidate the other valid signatures on the paper.”  “The word ‘knowingly,’ 
as used in the statute, is used in its ordinary and common meaning that one is 
aware of existing facts.”  State ex rel. Carson v. Jones (1970), 24 Ohio St.2d 70, 
72, 53 O.O.2d 116, 117, 263 N.E.2d 567, 568; State ex rel. Citizens for 
Responsible Taxation v. Scioto Cty. Bd. of Elections (1992), 65 Ohio St.3d 167, 
174, 602 N.E.2d 615, 621. 
 
As discussed previously, allowing nonregistered persons to complete 
registration applications and then sign petitions is permissible under the pertinent 
statutes.  Therefore, the board did not err in denying the Osters’ R.C. 3501.38(F) 
challenge. 
R.C. 3503.06; Nonregistered Circulators 
 
The Osters finally assert that the board abused its discretion and 
disregarded R.C. 3503.06 by not striking one hundred and four signatures as 
invalid because three circulators were not registered at the times that these 
persons signed the petition. 
 
In Buckley v. Am. Constitutional Law Found., Inc. (1999), 525 U.S. 182, 
119 S.Ct. 636, 142 L.Ed.2d 599, the United States Supreme Court held that a 
Colorado statute requiring that initiative-petition circulators be registered voters 
violated the First Amendment right to free speech.  See, also, Stone v. Prescott 
(C.A.9, 1999), 173 F.3d 1172, 1175, where the federal court of appeals, in 
construing Buckley, observed that “where the people reserve the initiative or 
referendum power, the exercise of that power is protected by the First 
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Amendment applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment” and that a 
state “may not impermissibly burden the exercise of the right to petition the 
government by initiative or referendum.”  (Emphasis added.)  It is a “ ‘well-
settled principle of statutory construction that where constitutional questions are 
raised, courts will liberally construe a statute to save it from constitutional 
infirmities.’ ”  Woods v. Telb (2000), 89 Ohio St.3d 504, 516, 733 N.E.2d 1103, 
1113, quoting State v. Sinito (1975), 43 Ohio St.2d 98, 101, 72 O.O.2d 54, 56, 
330 N.E.2d 896, 898.  We therefore construe R.C. 3503.06 as not requiring that 
circulators be registered electors at the time that they circulate part-petitions.  By 
so construing R.C. 3503.06, we find that the Osters’ contention lacks merit. 
Conclusion 
 
Based on the foregoing, the board of elections neither abused its discretion 
nor acted in clear disregard of applicable legal provisions in denying the Osters’ 
protest and submitting the referendum on Lorain Ordinance No. 77-01 to the 
electorate at the November 6, 2001 general election.  The Osters did not establish 
entitlement to the requested extraordinary relief in prohibition.  Consequently, we 
deny the writ. 
Writ denied. 
 
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and 
LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
 
Riley, Resar & Associates, P.L.L., and Kenneth R. Resar, for relators. 
 
Gregory A. White, Lorain County Prosecuting Attorney, and Gerald A. 
Innes, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for respondent Lorain County Board of 
Elections. 
 
Phillips & Co., L.P.A. and Gerald W. Phillips, for intervening respondent. 
__________________