Tim Batton, Jerome F. McNally and Lawrence Stacey II are no longer interested in running for

Tim Batton, Jerome F. McNally and Lawrence Stacey II are no longer interested in running for political office.
It's well within their rights to make that decision.
Or is it?
Apparently the state doesn't believe candidates who submitted petitions to run for the March 2 primary and then decide to withdraw after Jan. 12 have the right to change their minds.
Local county board of elections say they would have plenty of time to remove the names of the candidates no longer interested in running from the ballot.
"I can easily take their names off, but the state is adamant that I can't," said Michael Sciortino, director of the Mahoning County Board of Elections.
So those three don't want to run in the primary, but their names will appear on the ballot anyway.
In Batton's race, two front-runners for the Democratic nomination for a Mahoning County commissioner's seat remain: Anthony Traficanti of Poland, former regional director for the 17th Congressional District, and Austintown Trustee David Ditzler. The race is expected to be tight, and every vote will count.
William Flickinger of Youngstown is also running but isn't expected to challenge for the top spot.
Batton's withdrawal is expected to boost Ditzler's campaign because they appeal to the same group of voters. But if people vote for Batton because they don't realize he doesn't want the seat, it could affect the race. It could just be a few hundred people who vote for Batton, and that might be enough to tip the results.
What makes this so interesting is that on nonpresidential election years, there is no deadline for candidates to withdraw and still get their names off the ballot.
There is only a deadline on presidential election years.
During those years, local candidates have until 51 days before the election -- Jan. 12 this year -- to withdraw. David DeChristofaro of Niles did just that when he withdrew Jan. 6 from the Trumbull County engineer's race.
"This goes to legislative intent," said James Lee, an Ohio Secretary of State's Office spokesman. "I don't know what the reason for this is. In presidential years, the primary is earlier, which lends itself to different considerations."
But for some reason, presidential candidates get more time than local ones. Presidential candidates have until Feb. 2, 30 days before the primary election, to withdraw.
So election board officials have removed the name of Dick Gephardt from the ballot because the former House minority leader withdrew as a presidential candidate -- before the Feb. 2 deadline, but not before the Jan. 17 local candidate deadline.
"I'm taking Gephardt's name off the ballot, but I can't do anything about McNally and Batton," Sciortino said. "This is ludicrous. There should be uniformity for both local and presidential candidates. We should be allowed to comply with the wishes of the candidates. This is going to confuse the voters."
In the cases of McNally and Batton, they will lose in the Democratic primary in March and that will be the end of them.
But Stacey is a different story.
Stacey doesn't want to run for the Ohio Senate's 30th District seat anymore, but he will win the Republican primary in March. That's because he's the only Republican candidate for the job on the ballot.
In yet another quirk of the state election law, the Republican Party can replace Stacey with another candidate, but only after the primary election and no later than Aug. 18.
That might prove to be a bit of a challenge though.
The 30th Ohio Senate District takes in Columbiana, Jefferson, Harrison, Belmont and Tuscarawas counties.
That's a lot of Republicans, but only Stacey filed to be a candidate for the Senate seat before the deadline. Will anyone want to take his place? If not, it will leave the Republicans in an embarrassing situation of having no candidate for a state Senate seat that takes in five counties. The district leans Democratic, but not overwhelmingly so.