Chrissie Thompson

cthompson@enquirer.com

COLUMBUS – Libertarian candidates for Ohio governor and attorney general were rightly disqualified from the ballot, a federal judge said Wednesday, upholding a ruling this month by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted.

Husted had removed gubernatorial candidate Charlie Earl and attorney general candidate Steven Linnabary from the ballot because people who gathered the 500 signatures they each needed to qualify did not identify their employers, as required by Ohio law.

That law is constitutional, Judge Michael Watson said Wednesday.

"The public interest is best served by allowing Ohio to acquire the identities of petition circulators and those who pay them in order to detect and deter fraud in the election process," Watson said in his decision.

A petition gatherer who testified in the case seemed willing to follow it, so the law wouldn't have kept him from freely expressing political speech, said Watson, a U.S. District Court judge.

The Libertarian Party of Ohio immediately asked Watson to stay his decision to allow the party to make an emergency appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The party wants Husted to hold off printing finalized ballots for the May 6 primary until the appeals court can consider its case. Early voting is currently scheduled to begin Saturday.

The federal court decision follows months of controversy over Earl's attempt to get on the ballot. Democrats have hoped that Earl would draw conservative voters away from Gov. John Kasich, thus boosting Democrat Ed FitzGerald's chances in the November election. So Libertarians have accused the GOP of trying to keep Earl off the ballot to protect Kasich.

In his ruling Wednesday, Watson said he found "obvious" evidence that Ohio Republican Party operatives or supporters had orchestrated the protest against Earl's placement on the ballot, even though only Libertarians are permitted by law to file the protest.

Watson said Republicans found a "guileless dupe" -- Akron carpenter Gregory Felosci, who considers himself a Libertarian -- who agreed to be contacted by attorneys to file the protest. Felosci displayed little understanding of what he was protesting, Watson said, and did not know who was paying his attorneys, from the Columbus firm Zeiger, Tigges & Little.

At the same time, Watson confirmed accusations that Ohio Democratic Party operatives or supporters were involved in helping the Libertarians gather the signatures they needed to qualify for the ballot -- a process that by law is supposed to be conducted by Libertarians alone.

But those findings didn't matter in Watson's decision. Husted disqualified the Libertarians because their signature-gatherers had failed to disclose who was paying them, as required by law. So Watson focused his ruling on reviewing the application of that law to the Libertarian signature gathering process. ■