Apr 18, 2013 3 min read

On April 8, the Observer-Reporter published a letter written by Jeff Foutz in which he questioned the validity of judicial candidate Thomas Fallert’s nomination petitions.

Foutz’s claim was that Fallert did not obtain enough legal signatures to be on the ballot. The evidence Foutz provided was his own guess that, because of time constraints, it would have been too difficult for one person to have obtained every signature on the petitions that Fallert signed as the legal circulator.

This erroneously assumes that signatures can only be obtained at the home of the person who signed. There are, of course, countless places where a candidate could obtain multiple signatures at one time on different pages of the same petition. The problem with Foutz’s claim and the recanted challenge he was defending is that they would be legally and ethically irrelevant even if they were true.

The purpose of the affidavits that each circulator signed is not, as Foutz claimed, to establish that the circulator was the [only] individual who got the signatures on that petition. Its purpose is to confirm that the circulator believes the signatures on a petition are authentic and belong to qualified electors. The circulator who signs a petition is not required to have obtained every signature on it, meaning that if Fallert delegated the task of obtaining some signatures to others, it would still have been legally correct for him to sign as the circulator. This legal information is publicly available on the Internet to anyone who bothers to search for it.

It is a plain matter of fact that the challenge to Fallert’s petitions had no legal basis. This is the reason that the challenge was withdrawn, despite Foutz’s conspiratorial assertion about pressure from unnamed Washington Democrats. Anyone who claims the challenge was merited has not read the petition affidavit, does not understand the legal definition of circulator, or is deliberately misleading the public. No one, including the lawyer who filed the challenge, has expressed doubt that the signatures on Fallert’s petitions are genuine and belong to qualified voters of Washington County. Whatever motivated the challenge to Fallert’s nomination, it cannot have been sincere ethical concern founded on sound legal reasoning. The challenge reflects either ignorance of the law or disregard for it. Here Foutz is at least correct to observe that Washington County deserves better from candidates for judicial positions, some of whom should have had more integrity than to abuse the legal system by inciting this frivolous legal action through a third party against a worthy candidate.

R. Lapcevic

McMurray