The Athens County Board of Elections has upset a local anti-fracking organization time and time again in recent months, and the group is ready to take action again.
Because it’s now too late to make additions to the 2013 ballot, the Bill of Rights Committee is now requesting that the initiative go to the voters in 2014, according to a news release from the committee.
Debbie Quivey, director of the Board of Elections, said it is too far in advance to predict whether or not the board will include the fracking ban on the 2014 ballot and that she cannot speak for the board as a whole.
“(The committee) would have to file petitions again...(and) start from beginning,” Quivey said, adding that it is also possible that the Bill of Rights Committee could fail to gain enough signatures on a petition next year.
The board declined to respond to a Sept. 19 letter from the committee’s attorney, Sean Kelly, requesting their reasoning for denying a hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, ban on the ballot this November.
“We are aware of no legal obligation to respond to your request in the manner in which you have specified,” Helen Walker, chair of the Board of Elections, said in her letter responding to Kelly.
“That gives us two possibilities: it is possible that we could have everything ready for the May primary election, but the other option is the November general election,” said Richard McGinn, the group’s organizer and associate professor emeritus of linguistics and Southeast Asian studies at Ohio University.
The committee plans to exercise their rights under Ohio’s open records laws to obtain more information.
The Bill of Rights Committee plans to find every public document related to this case, dating from the filing of the initiative petition with the City Auditor on April 4, according to the release.
The release also stated the implications of the board’s policy of silence is cause for concern because it means the board can sustain any protest against any future initiative petition without justifying its decision.
“By refusing to explain its decision, the Board of Elections has failed to follow the law,” McGinn said. “Democracy will not sit down—it will move forward.”
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@KellyPFisher
