A group seeking the return of county-wide voting in Franklin County has faced a setback after a petition they circulated did not have enough valid signatures to put the county-wide voting issue on the November ballot.
The county-wide voting issue has been in the county commission’s face since about 2006 when 70 percent of local voters said in a non-binding referendum they would like to ditch single member districts.
Since that referendum the county has taken no action to make the voters wishes a reality.
County commissioners have run in single member districts since 1986 – that move was ordered by the courts after a group of local voters filed suit to ensure that there was minority representation on the board.
Before the court order there was never a black county commissioner in Franklin County.
Now, however, a group of local voters called the Franklin County Voters' County-Wide Voting Political Action Committee, Inc says that times have changed enough that county commissioners and school board members should be elected by all of the voters because they make decisions that affect the whole county.
The group was able to get 852 signatures on a petition asking that the issue be put before the voters in November.
The problem is that 117 signatures were rejected by the Supervisor of Elections Office because they were either duplicates or were not valid.
That left the County-Wide Voting group 49 votes short of the minimum number of signatures needed to put the issue on the November ballot.
So now the group will have to start collecting signatures again – the petitions that were already turned in can’t be resubmitted, and the group can’t add more signatures to them.
The earliest they could now get the issue before voters is 2012.
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