Attorney says he’ll challenge Hardman as a write-in candidate

Mike Garner, the local attorney who has announced his intention to challenge Ann Hardman for the post of Clerk of Superior Court, has declared that he will run as a write-in candidate rather than as an independent, which he had originally planned to do.

Garner recently filed a lawsuit challenging the number of signatures state law requires to qualify as an independent. In Garner’s case, he would have to obtain 5,226 valid signatures to have his name placed on the November ballot. His suit claimed that the law poses an unconstitutional burden on independent candidates.

The law states that candidates who want to run as independents must gather and submit petitions signed by enough voters to equal 5 percent of those registered during the last election. In this case, that would be 5,226 signatures, and they would have to be submitted by July 12.

Garner said in a release that state law requires that local Superior Court judges be disqualified from hearing such a suit and that a judge from another circuit be appointed.

“Because a judge has not been appointed and a hearing has not been scheduled at this time, the suit will be too late to help Mike Garner in his election bid,” Garner’s release states. “Therefore, Mike Garner has filed the paperwork to run as a write-in candidate against Ann Hardman.”

Write-in candidates’ names do not appear on the ballot, so voters would have to write in his name in a given space on the ballot.

“Mike Garner therefore has abandoned his effort to obtain signatures and will instead mount a vigorous campaign to tine the election for clerk by write-in vote,” Garner’s release states.

Hardman defeated incumbent Superior Court Clerk Linda Pierce in the May 24 Democratic Party primary, 6,699 to 4,480.

Pierce is one of four local elected officials who have lawsuits pending against the city of Columbus and its leadership over funding for their departments and over the city’s budgeting process. Marshal Greg Countryman and Municipal Court Clerk Vivian Creighton Bishop co-filed their suit and were reelected in the May 24 nonpartisan election. Sheriff John Darr, the other elected official to sue, will face Democratic nominee Donna Tompkins and Republican nominee Mark LaJoye in the November election. Darr will run as an independent, but as an incumbent, he does not have to gather any signatures to do so.

This story was originally published June 27, 2016 at 1:27 PM with the headline "Attorney says he’ll challenge Hardman as a write-in candidate."