A former Euclid city councilwoman who filed as an independent candidate for the 14th Congressional District seat has failed to qualify for the Nov. 5 ballot.

The board of elections for Lake County, the most populous county in the congressional district, voted Tuesday to not certify Maria Jukic because she didn’t have enough valid signatures.

Jukic filed nominating petitions with 3,029 signatures, with the board determining 2,319 were valid, said Dante Lewis, the board’s director. To qualify as an independent, Jukic needed 3,003 valid signatures.

That number is 1% of the total registered voters in the district, which includes all of Trumbull, Ashtabula, Lake and Geauga counties and all but two communities in Portage County.

The majority of the signatures ruled invalid by the board came from those not registered to vote or registered at a different address than what their voter registration records show, Lewis said.

Jukic served a four-year term on Euclid council after being elected as a Democrat in November 2019. She didn’t seek reelection last year.

Jukic is senior director of arts and medicine at the Cleveland Clinic’s Office of Patient Experience and has worked for the hospital for 23 years.

Jukic resides in Cuyahoga County, which isn’t in the 14th District, but candidates who run for congressional seats in Ohio only need to reside in the state.

The candidates for the seat are now U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Bainbridge, who is seeking his seventh two-year term, and Democrat Brian Bob Kenderes. The district is considered a safe Republican seat.

A Lake County grand jury is considering criminal charges against Kenderes after a felony count of filing a false voter registration was bound over to it April 30 from Painesville Municipal Court.

The Lake County Sheriff’s Office on March 22 charged Kenderes, alleging he lives in Strongsville, but filed his nominating petitions and his voter registration with the elections board stating he lives in Mentor.

Kenderes filed three nominating petitions, also called candidate declarations, with the signatures to get on the ballot dated Dec. 15, 16 and 19 stating he lives at 8930 Doral Drive in Mentor, as well as a voter registration form on Dec. 15 with the board with that same address, according to a criminal complaint from the sheriff’s office.

The candidate declarations specifically states, “Whoever commits election falsification is guilty of a felony of the fifth degree.”

After the elections board sent a letter to Kenderes at 8903 Doral Drive acknowledging his registration, his brother and sister-in-law, who live at that address, informed the board that he does not reside there and never has, according to the sheriff’s report.

The couple — Joseph and Jill Kenderes — said Kenderes has lived at 9049 Prospect Road in Strongsville since 2017.