For Immediate Release

Press Release From Conservatives for Steve Christopher

Steve Christopher has been forced to fight for the past five days to have his name rightfully placed on the May Republican primary ballot. Christopher was disqualified by the Ohio Secretary of State for allegedly failing to obtain the 1,000 needed signatures, when in fact he submitted over 2,700 signatures. We found that a very large number of signatures never made it to the proper Board of Elections Offices for validation. Christopher felt that this was a serious issue involving the voice of almost 2,000 citizens, which compelled him to obtain legal counsel.

Yesterday, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner issued a press release entitled, “SECRETARY BRUNNER RESPONDS TO UNFOUNDED ALLEGATIONS.” In this release, Secretary Brunner stated that she did not know why Steve Christopher would not contact her office. In fact, a representative for the Christopher campaign did visit the Secretary of State’s office on Monday regarding this situation. In this meeting, it was reiterated by Secretary of State personnel that the 788-signature count would stand. Election laws are very specific and if Christopher would have waited for a resolution, he would have lost his legal recourse to be placed on the ballot. Christopher retained legal representation to ensure his right to be on the ballot. Christopher’s legal counsel is attempting to arrange a meeting with the Secretary of State’s office, and will discuss the issue of the campaign’s copies of its petitions.

Secretary Brunner states, in this same press release, that the number of signatures purported on the receipt is given by the candidate. The number of signatures on the receipt given to Christopher was filled out by a Secretary of State employee. The employee accepting these petitions does this for a living and could easily detect a discrepancy of almost 2,000 signatures, merely by size of the stack of paper.

Today we obtained an Excel spreadsheet file that was created and distributed by the Secretary of State’s office to all 88 Ohio county Boards of Elections. This spreadsheet was created on February 18^th at 5:51 PM, over five hours after Steve’s petition submittal. We can produce this document upon request, pending the approval of the campaign’s attorney.

We continue to receive numerous calls and emails from citizens who have signed and/or circulated petitions. They have tried to verify that their signatures or petitions made it to the appropriate Board of Elections offices. We have found that numerous petitions were never received by the county Board of Elections offices.

Steve Christopher is committed to continue to fight to keep conservative Ohioans’ voices from being silenced at the ballot box in the May Republican primary. He has not cancelled any event appearances.

Thank You,

Mark Lucas

Media Relations Director - 614-266-2412 – This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Conservatives for Steve Christopher

http://stevechristopher.org

http://www.meetup.com/Steve-Christopher-for-Ohio-Attorney-General/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Steve-Christopher-for-Ohio-Attorney-General/334306033304