Luzerne County’s Election Board voted Wednesday on procedures to address petition signature challenges in a citizen effort to repeal the county’s new anti-discrimination ordinance. Board members are, from left: Albert Schlosser, Audrey Serniak, Chairwoman Christine Boyle, and Roxanne Arreguin. Board Vice Chairman Rick Morelli attended remotely.
Jennifer Learn-Andes | Times Leader
Under procedures approved Wednesday, Luzerne County’s Election Board won’t be deciding at this time if petition signatures are thrown out in the anti-discrimination ordinance repeal effort because the number of contested signatures is too low to stop the petition.
Citizens seeking a ballot referendum on repealing the new county anti-discrimination ordinance submitted their first batch of 1,899 signatures by last month’s deadline.
Council Clerk Sharon Lawrence accepted all but 63, which means the group has 1,836 submitted, or 674 over the minimum threshold of 1,162.
County Councilman Chris Belles, an ordinance advocate, asked the board to invalidate 475 signatures and requested permission to challenge another approximately 90 that were released later due to a computer error. Even if he succeeded in voiding all 565, the citizens would have more than 100 over the required threshold.
The new policy, unanimously approved, said the board won’t entertain challenges if the petition would still be sufficient as a whole after defective or invalid signatures are eliminated.
Belles said he is fine with the board’s process as long as he retains the option to contest any signatures, current or future, when the full and final petition is submitted by Aug. 8.
The citizens must submit at least 11,615 signatures by Aug. 8, and those collected so far count toward the total.
County Assistant Solicitor Gene Molino said the board must vote to make it clear that objections to any signatures from the start of the process to the end may be submitted when the final petition is turned in. Otherwise, the decision to forego adjudicating them now would be “inherently unfair” because the initial batch counts toward the cumulative total, he said.
A vote on that caveat is expected during Thursday’s public hearing on petition challenges, which starts at 9 a.m. in Suite 203 of the county’s Penn Place Building, 20 N. Pennsylvania Ave. in Wilkes-Barre.
Because the new policy makes Belles’ request to contest an additional 90 signatures moot at this time, the board tabled a decision on whether it would be granted Wednesday and appeared to be leaning against making any immediate determination.
During public comment, several citizens and Attorney J. Chadwick Schnee, who is representing the citizen petition committee, strongly objected to allowing Belles to challenge the additional signatures for a myriad of reasons. Belles has filed a legal argument in support of his request.
Board Chairwoman Christine Boyle expressed reservations about setting a precedent on the matter if it is not required to do so at this time, saying there could be consequences.
Molino told the board it would “basically open up a can of worms ruling on this” when such a ruling is not required because the matter is moot.
While Belles sought to invalidate signatures, prior county controller Walter Griffith, who is heading the group seeking a repeal referendum, has asked the election board to count approximately 60 signatures rejected by Lawrence.
Generally speaking, Molino said the board would have to consistently apply its new procedure and not decide requests to add signatures if it is not addressing deletions.
However, Molino said Griffith’s challenge goes beyond the validity of individual signatures and must be determined by the board during Thursday’s hearing.
According to Molino, Griffith is arguing that Lawrence should not have rejected petitions submitted by one or two petition circulators who were not part of the original petitioners committee formed at the start of the process.
“I think that’s a question we need to answer,” Molino said, noting it impacts the committee in its ongoing efforts to gather signatures.
The county’s home rule charter says the petitioners committee is “responsible for coordinating the circulation of the referendum petition and for filing it in the proper form.”
Molino said “coordinating” is not the same as circulating, and there is no charter language stating only committee members can circulate petitions. The petition form supplied by the county does not state circulators must be members of the petitioners committee, he added.
As a result, Molino said he will advise the board to decide petitions from non-committee members should be accepted as long as the circulators meet other requirements stated on the petition.
The board is navigating new territory because it’s the first time a citizen-initiated referendum has been attempted under the home rule charter that took effect in 2012.
Griffith estimated Wednesday his group has gathered approximately 7,000 petition signatures to date.
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Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.