toledoblade.com --

The Ohio Supreme Court yesterday dashed the last hope of a would-be Toledo City Council District 6 candidate who asked the court to put her on the ballot for the Nov. 8 general election.

In a 5-2 decision, the court denied the request of Lisa Canales-Flores for a writ of mandamus, which would have put her name back on the ballot despite a decision by the Lucas County Board of Elections to take it off.

She was one of five contenders for the seat of Wade Kapszukiewicz, which he vacated Sept. 4 to become county treasurer.

"This is not anywhere we wanted to be," Ms. Canales-Flores said yesterday afternoon.

"We're extremely disappointed as a campaign committee," she said.

Jill Kelly, elections board director, said the board "felt we did the right thing. We followed the statute."

Still, she added, "it never makes anyone on the Board of Elections happy when someone doesn't get on the ballot."

The case stemmed from the Sept. 27 action of the elections board, which voted to decertify the candidate's petition. The problem: Victoria Pratt, Ms. Canales-Flores' sister and the notary public who notarized the petitions, mistakenly signed them on the line for the candidate's signature. That invalidated her petitions, the board ruled.

On. Sept. 29, Ms. Canales-Flores filed a second set of petitions, which the board rejected.

The next day, her attorney, Keith Wilkowski, asked the court to overrule the board's decision.

In its ruling, the court said "the board of elections acted properly when it ruled [Ms.] Canales-Flores' first petition invalid and refused to accept her second petition for filing. Therefore, [Ms.] Canales-Flores has not established her entitlement to the requested extraordinary relief."

Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer and Justices Terrence O'Donnell, Maureen O'Connor, Alice Robie Resnick, and Judith Lanzinger concurred in yesterday's decision.

Justices Paul E. Pfeifer and Evelyn Lundberg Stratton dissented.

The dissenting opinion, penned by Justice Pfeifer, states:

"To deny Lisa Canales-Flores a place on the ballot, assuming her second nominating petition is complete, is to do worse than elevate form over substance: it is to elevate bureaucracy over democracy.

"This court is instituting a 'get it right the first time or perish' rule that the General Assembly, in my view, did not contemplate."

In separate interviews, Ms. Canales-Flores and Mr. Wilkowski each singled out the statement for praise.

"I think what Justice Pfeifer said was brilliant," she said. "I really liked that."

The court's ruling ends the candidate's quest for the council seat.

"There's really nowhere to go from here," Mr. Wilkowski said. "The decision is a final one. It's unfortunate that the voters won't have the opportunity to make the decision of whether Lisa Canales-Flores should serve on council."

The remaining candidates for the District 6 seat are David Ball, Donald Bensman, Joe Birmingham, and Kate Ryan Schwartz.

As for Ms. Canales-Flores, she intends to keep campaigning - but not for herself.

"My job for the next two weeks will be to help the other Latino candidates get elected," she said, referring to council at-large candidate Robert Vasquez, Lourdes Santiago, who is running for Toledo Municipal Court judge, and Toledo school board hopeful Robert Torres.

"I'll be out hitting the pavement for them, making sure they get elected," she said.

- Vanessa Winans

Permanent Link

RECENT RELATED ARTICLES

• Then there were 12 | 09/19/2009