Opinion ID: 6324870
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Secretary LaRose’s evidence

Text: {¶ 9} The secretary of state’s office has promulgated Form No. 2-B, a twosided form for candidates. The front of the form consists of the declaration of candidacy, the petition for the candidate, and a numbered table for collecting signatures. The back of the form contains additional signature blocks and a space for the circulator’s statement and signature. Maras did not use Form No. 2-B for her part-petitions. {¶ 10} According to Greg Fedak, the technical elections administrator with the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office, Elections Division, Maras submitted her partpetitions on a form “apparently of her own devising.” The part-petition form she created (“the Maras part-petition form”) contains the header “Terpsehore P. Maras (TORE)—Petition for Ohio Secretary of State” and a table for signatures. It does not contain a declaration of candidacy. Maras submitted this form in different combinations with portions of Form No. 2-B and her declaration. {¶ 11} Maras submitted part-petitions from a total of 68 counties. With respect to Adams County, Maras submitted a single page of petition signatures on the Maras part-petition form. She also submitted only the front page of Form No. 2-B, containing her original ink-signature declaration. That form contained no petition signatures. The secretary of state’s office deemed that declaration page to be part of the Adams County petition because Adams County is first alphabetically. 4 January Term, 2022 Therefore, the Adams County part-petition, with the declaration, were sent to the county board for signature verification. {¶ 12} Maras submitted to Cuyahoga County and Lake County a different version of Form No. 2-B, one that included a declaration of candidacy but not the numbered table for signatures. She had submitted petition signatures on the Maras part-petition form. The Cuyahoga County and Lake County Boards of Elections received declarations along with the part-petitions. {¶ 13} For the remaining 65 counties, Maras submitted signatures only on the Maras part-petition form without any portion of Form No. 2-B. Those 65 county boards therefore received part-petitions without a declaration of candidacy. {¶ 14} Approximately 40 county boards contacted the secretary of state’s office for guidance on how to handle part-petitions lacking a declaration. In response, Grandjean sent the email instructing the county boards that part-petitions must include the candidate’s declaration. Ultimately, some county boards validated signatures on Maras’s part-petitions that lacked a signed declaration of candidacy while other county boards either disqualified the petitions in the first instance or amended their prior certifications to reflect zero valid signatures after receiving Grandjean’s email. Collectively, the county boards certified only 556 valid signatures. {¶ 15} According to Fedak, on February 15, a representative from Maras’s campaign asked to speak to Fedak in person regarding the invalidated signatures on Maras’s part-petitions. Maras’s representative stated that she had “supplied the Secretary of State’s Office with a set of signed declarations of candidacy and believed [the secretary of state’s office] would copy the declarations and attach them to the part-petitions for each county.” According to a summary of the meeting that was prepared by Deputy Elections Counsel Brian D. Malachowsky, who had also been present during the discussion, Maras’s representative “twice confirmed that the supplied declarations of candidacy were not attached to any part-petitions 5 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO with signatures but acted under the belief that [the secretary of state’s office] would attach them.” {¶ 16} The next day, Maras’s campaign manager faxed to one or more county boards a copy of Maras’s declaration of candidacy and asked the recipient county boards to certify the petition signatures based on the declaration that was being faxed along with the letter.