The bottom line for all of this is:
1. Kathy Falls, as an Unaffiliated voter by her own choice, can still legally file and run for the Cleveland County School Board by submitting 2,535 duly registered Cleveland County voters on a petition that must be filed by Noon-September 22, 2017.
2. Any duly registered voter (of the 60,000+ voters in Cleveland County) who wants to run for the school board, whether or not they are affiliated with any political party, can also file their petitions by September 22, 2017 and have their names put on the 2017 General Election Ballot without going through any Political Party Primary Election process.
In a long and detailed discussion this afternoon with Dayna Causby, Director of the Cleveland County Board of Elections, Mrs. Causby has provided the following suggestions to anyone wanting to run for the School Board using the petition process:
1. Since the signatures on every petition will have to be verified, candidates are encouraged to get their petition papers from the County Board of Elections as early as possible, start getting the petition signatures and realize that some people may sign the petition without being a duly registered voter in Cleveland County.
2. Allow for this by getting more total signatures than necessary and submitting them early before the September 22, 2017 deadline to allow for the verification process to certify that enough valid signatures have been provided. Mrs. Causby states that any petition that ends up with not enough verified signatures will be disallowed. This is the same as with any petition filed in any election. Nothing is new about this.
3. Remember that the reduction of verified signatures from 2,535 to 500 is only a draft bill and may not pass in the August session of the General Assembly. Mrs. Causby recommends starting NOW with obtaining your petition signatures, plan on obtaining more than 2,535 signatures and file early, just in case there are signatures that are disqualified so you can go out and get more signatures.
