MAHONING COUNTY Elections board rejects petitions

The would-be challenger turned in a petition with signatures from people who are not registered to vote.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Mahoning County Board of Elections will not permit the name of a tow-truck company owner to appear on the May 8 ballot for Youngstown mayor because he did not have enough valid signatures on his nominating petitions.
Donald P. Connelly of Wick Avenue said he is going to run against Mayor George M. McKelvey in the Democratic primary as a write-in candidate, however.
Connelly's name will not appear on the ballot, but if he files as a write-in by the March 19 deadline, there will be a space for voters to write in his name for mayor.
"I'm still going to give him a good run," Connelly said. "I'm going to try."
The board voted unanimously to reject Connelly's nominating petitions at its Thursday meeting.
What was submitted: Connelly submitted petitions with 61 signatures. But after an investigation by board workers, only 36 were deemed to be valid. Connelly needed at least 50 valid signatures to be on the ballot.
Of the 25 disqualified signatures, eight were from people not registered to vote, seven were from people not registered to vote at the address they listed on his petitions, four printed their names, one signed using a pencil and five were from people living outside Youngstown, elections board officials said.
Connelly is the only person challenging McKelvey, who was first elected mayor in 1997. There is no Republican opposition.
In 1997, McKelvey received 12,094 in a four-person Democratic primary. Connelly, owner and operator of Macho Man's Towing, finished a distant fourth with 149 votes.
Redrawn precincts: The board also approved redrawn voting precincts for Struthers and Wards 5-7 in Youngstown. The board adopted redrawn districts for Wards 1-4 in Youngstown last month.
Board officials plan to adopt new voting districts for Poland at its March 19 meeting. The board will approve new precincts for the rest of the county in time for the Nov. 6 general election.
The board wants to eliminate about 100 of the county's 416 voting precincts.
Youngstown's precincts were reduced from 135 to 83 and Struthers has 15 precincts instead of 20.
The county is required to redraw precinct boundaries under a state law passed in 1999. Each eliminated precinct results in a savings of about $1,000, said Thomas P. McCabe, deputy director.
The board also approved a contract with Youngstown Lithograph to print paper ballots for the May 8 primary at a cost of nearly 32 cents per ballot. The board expects to need about 70,000 ballots for the primary, which would cost slightly more than $22,000.