Opinion ID: 4507893
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Elector Authenticity

Text: {¶ 8} White argues that the board abused its discretion when it rescinded her certification to the ballot after sustaining Woods’s challenge to her own signature because the “sworn” statements that White obtained from Harmon, Smoot, and Rue established that their signatures are genuine. She argues that if those signatures are deemed to be valid, her petition contains 52 valid signatures— two more than the minimum number required. On this basis, she asserts a clear legal right to have her name recertified to the ballot and a clear legal duty on the part of the board to do so under R.C. 3513.05. {¶ 9} The board responds that the documents White obtained are unsworn statements, not sworn affidavits, and that the purported signatures of Harmon, Smoot, and Rue on those statements have not been verified through comparison with those electors’ voter-registration forms. The board argues that the unsworn statements are therefore insufficient to confirm that Harmon, Smoot, and Rue actually signed the statements and, ultimately, are insufficient to show that they signed White’s petition. The board therefore denies that White has a clear legal right to ballot access and denies that it has a clear legal duty to certify her name to the ballot. We conclude that the board is correct. {¶ 10} A board of elections has a duty to “[r]eview, examine, and certify the sufficiency and validity of petitions and nomination papers.” R.C. 3501.11(K). “As part of that duty, boards must compare petition signatures with voter- 4 January Term, 2020 registration cards to determine if the signatures are genuine.” State ex rel. Scott v. Franklin Cty. Bd. of Elections, 139 Ohio St.3d 171, 2014-Ohio-1685, 10 N.E.3d 697, ¶ 17. In this case, the board compared the petition signatures with the voterregistration signatures and determined that the petition signatures purporting to be those of Harmon, Smoot, and Rue were not genuine. {¶ 11} When a petition signature does not match the one on the signer’s voter-registration form but the board determines that the signature is nonetheless genuine, the board abuses its discretion if it invalidates the signature for not matching the one on file. Georgetown v. Brown Cty. Bd. of Elections, ___ Ohio St.3d ___, 2019-Ohio-3915, ___ N.E.3d ___, ¶ 23-25, citing State ex rel. Crowl v. Delaware Cty. Bd. of Elections, 144 Ohio St.3d 346, 2015-Ohio-4097, 43 N.E.3d 406, ¶ 11, and Scott at ¶ 19. “Although the caselaw speaks in terms of establishing whether a signature is genuine,    the duty of the boards of elections is to establish the authenticity of the elector, not the signature.” (Emphasis sic.) Id. at ¶ 24. {¶ 12} The facts in Scott, Crowl, and Georgetown involved print/cursive mismatches, i.e., situations in which an elector signed the petition in print but the signature on file was in cursive, or vice versa. See Georgetown at ¶ 22-24. In each of those cases, there had been evidence sufficient to establish that the electors in question had actually signed the petition. Id. at ¶ 14, 23-25. In Scott, there had been uncontroverted, sworn hearing testimony from the petition circulator and the elector that the elector had signed the petition. Scott at ¶ 7; see also State ex rel. Scott v. Franklin Cty. Bd. of Elections, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 14AP-197, 2014Ohio-1395, 10 N.E.3d 776, ¶ 6 (testimony was given under oath). And in Crowl, the relator had submitted sworn affidavits from the electors attesting that the signatures that had been rejected as “not genuine” were in fact genuine. Crowl at ¶ 4. 5 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO {¶ 13} By contrast, in this case, the board is correct that the documents at issue are not sworn affidavits and are instead unsworn statements. “An affidavit must appear, on its face, to have been taken before the proper officer and in compliance with all legal requisites. A paper purporting to be an affidavit, but not to have been sworn to before an officer, is not an affidavit.” In re Disqualification of Pokorny, 74 Ohio St.3d 1238, 657 N.E.2d 1345 (1992) (purported affidavit omitting jurat of notary public or other official authorized to administer oath or affirmation was not an affidavit); see also R.C. 2319.02 (“An affidavit is a written declaration under oath”). The documents at issue here bear the notary public’s stamp, but not her signature, and they contain no jurat of the notary public nor any other indication that the declarants had sworn to their statements or that they made their statements under oath. See R.C. 147.04; R.C. 147.542. {¶ 14} White argues in response that it does not matter if the statements were unsworn because in Georgetown, unsworn statements were used to establish the validity of petition signatures that did not match the voter-registration signatures on file. However, this argument overlooks the fact that in Georgetown, the record also contained the relevant electors’ voter-registration forms, and the board had voluntarily compared the signatures on the unsworn statements with the signatures on the voter-registration forms and determined that those signatures were consistent, thereby verifying the authenticity of the electors. Georgetown, ___ Ohio St.3d ___, 2019-Ohio-3915, ___ N.E.3d ___, at ¶ 14. {¶ 15} White points to no authority imposing on the board a clear legal duty to make the comparison between the signatures on the unsworn statements and those on the voter-registration forms that the board in Georgetown undertook voluntarily. Moreover, she does not seek the relief that would inure if such a duty existed, i.e., a writ ordering the board to compare the signatures on the unsworn statements with the signatures on the voter-registration forms. Rather, the relief 6 January Term, 2020 White seeks in this action is a writ ordering the board to certify her name directly to the ballot. {¶ 16} The record before us contains neither sworn testimony that Harmon, Smoot, and Rue signed the petition nor voter-registration forms against which the signatures on the unsworn statements can be compared to establish the authenticity of those electors. We conclude that White has failed to establish by clear and convincing evidence that the three disputed petition signatures are genuine or that the board abused its discretion in rejecting them. See State ex rel. Heavey v. Husted, 152 Ohio St.3d 579, 2018-Ohio-1152, 99 N.E.3d 372, ¶ 7, 10-11 (because the record did not contain the voter-registration records, relators could not prove the reason that the signatures were rejected). And therefore, she has not established a clear legal right to have her name placed on the ballot. Id. (because relators failed to present clear and convincing evidence of erroneously rejected signatures, they failed to show a clear legal right to be certified to the ballot).