[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 

State ex rel. Curtis v. Summit Cty. Bd. of Elections, Slip Opinion No. 2015-Ohio-3787.] 

NOTICE

This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in 

an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports. Readers are requested 

to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 

65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or 

other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be 

made before the opinion is published. 

SLIP OPINION NO. 2015-OHIO-3787

THE STATE EX REL. CURTIS v. SUMMIT COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS.

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 

may be cited as State ex rel. Curtis v. Summit Cty. Bd. of Elections, 

Slip Opinion No. 2015-Ohio-3787.] 

Elections—Mandamus—R.C. 3501.38(E)(1)—Petition circulators must indicate 

number of signatures on petitions they circulate—Action to compel board 

of elections to count valid signatures on a part-petition it found invalid—

Board of elections abused its discretion in finding that signature at issue 

was not crossed out—Writ granted. 

(No. 2015-1426—Submitted September 15, 2015—Decided September 18, 2015.) 

IN MANDAMUS. 

________________ 

 Per Curiam. 

{¶ 1} Relator, Mark H. Curtis, seeks a writ of mandamus to compel 

respondent, the Summit County Board of Elections, to count the valid signatures 

on a part-petition it invalidated. We grant the writ. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

2

Background 

{¶ 2} On June 26, 2015, Curtis filed a nominating petition and statement 

of candidacy to become a member of the school board of the Twinsburg City 

School District. The filing consisted of six part-petitions. At issue in this case is 

the validity of “Petition 1.” 

{¶ 3} The board of elections declared Petition 1 invalid. The board 

determined that there were 21 signatures on that part-petition and invalidated it in 

its entirety, because the circulator wrote that it contained 20 signatures from 

qualified electors. The valid signatures on the remaining five part-petitions are 

insufficient to qualify Curtis for the ballot. After hearing arguments from Curtis 

at a meeting on August 28, 2015, the board declined to reconsider its decision. 

{¶ 4} Line 7 of Petition 1 contains two signatures and two addresses. 

Curtis and his attorney told the board that the top signature on line 7 was that of 

Curtis’s neighbor, Earl Shaffer. As Shaffer was signing, Curtis asked if he was a 

registered voter. Shaffer said that he did not think so and stopped filling out his 

address on the form. Curtis stated at the hearing that he witnessed Shaffer draw a 

line through his name so as to strike it from the petition. Shaffer submitted an 

affidavit that supported Curtis’s account, attesting that he had struck through his 

own signature. The next petition signer then signed on the same line, below 

Shaffer’s name. When he submitted the part-petition, Curtis attested that there 

were 20 signatures on it, which was, to the best of his knowledge, the correct 

number of qualified signatures. 

{¶ 5} At the meeting in which the board denied reconsideration, two board 

members stated that upon examining Petition 1, they did not see any line-out of 

Shaffer’s name at all. A third board member stated that he could not tell one way 

or the other whether there was a cross-out. 

 
January Term, 2015 

3

Legal Analysis 

{¶ 6} The question in this case is whether the board abused its discretion 

by striking the part-petition in its entirety. 

{¶ 7} Curtis urges us to follow State ex rel. Schwarz v. Hamilton Cty. Bd. 

of Elections, 173 Ohio St. 321, 181 N.E.2d 888 (1962). In Schwarz, the board of 

elections disqualified a part-petition because the circulator’s statement indicated 

one less signature than the petition contained. The circulator explained the reason 

for the discrepancy at a hearing before the board of elections. Given the 

undisputed facts, this court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals denying 

a writ of mandamus and faulted the board for making a determination that was 

“too technical, unreasonable, and arbitrary.” Id at 323. 

{¶ 8} We find the dispute here to be virtually factually identical to the 

dispute in Schwarz, with no indication of fraud or material misrepresentation by 

the circulator of the petition. As in Schwarz, the relator in this case provided an 

explanation of the reason the number of signatures attested to in the circulator’s 

statement was less than the number of signatures appearing on the part-petition, 

specifically identifying the non-qualifying signature. Here, relator went further, 

providing an affidavit from the unregistered voter whose signature is at issue, who 

stated that he had struck through his signature on the petition, matching the 

relator’s testimony. This evidence made it clear that Shaffer’s signature had been 

crossed out, which made relator’s circulator statement accurate. We thus find that 

that “the determination made by the board against the validity of the petition was 

too technical, unreasonable and arbitrary—in short, an abuse of discretion—and 

that upon the facts which respondent had in its possession it was under the clear 

legal duty to approve and accept the petition.” Id.

{¶ 9} This court’s decision in Rust v. Lucas Cty. Bd. of Elections, 108 

Ohio St.3d 139, 2005-Ohio-5795, 841 N.E.2d 766, is inapposite. In Rust, this 

court recognized that R.C. 3501.38(E)(1) requires circulators to indicate the 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

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number of signatures on the part-petitions they circulate and reasoned that the 

purpose of this requirement is to protect against signatures being added to the 

petition after the circulator signs the statement. Id. at ¶ 9-11. This court held in 

Rust that the board of elections did not abuse its discretion by following the 

secretary of state’s interpretation of the statute that if the number indicated by the 

circulator is less than the actual number of signatures, the entire part-petition must 

be invalidated. Id. at ¶ 12-13. 

{¶ 10} In Rust, the circulator’s statement specified a number of signatures 

that was less than the actual number of signatures because the circulator was 

aware that at least one of the signatures came from an unqualified person. Id. at 

¶ 14. The circulator claimed that he did not want to violate the R.C. 

3501.38(E)(1) requirement that “all signers were to the best of the circulator’s 

knowledge and belief qualified to sign” by attesting to a number of qualified 

signers that he knew was inaccurate. Id. In that circumstance, this court held that 

the remedy lies in R.C. 3501.38(G), which permits a circulator to strike such a 

person’s name from the part-petition. Id. In Rust, the circulator made no claim 

that any of the invalid signatures had been crossed out. Here, relator presented 

undisputed evidence that Shaffer had crossed out his own signature. 

{¶ 11} Based on the foregoing, we grant the writ of mandamus. Given the 

short amount of time remaining to finalize ballots, the court will entertain no 

motions for reconsideration, clarification, or other relief in this case. 

Writ granted. 

O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, KENNEDY, and

O’NEILL, JJ., concur. 

FRENCH, J., dissents. 

_________________ 

David T. Andrews, for relator. 
January Term, 2015 

5

Sherri Bevan Walsh, Summit County Prosecuting Attorney, and Colleen 

Sims, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for respondent. 

_________________