Filling out nominating petitions, particularly if it’s your first time running for elected office, can be confusing for some.

That’s why the boards of elections in Mahoning and Trumbull counties provide candidates with information about what needs to be filled out in order to qualify for the ballot.

Yet still a number of potential candidates don’t bother to accept the generosity of the boards, which are trying to help them.

Instead, plenty of candidates print nominating petitions off websites, rather than pick them up at the board.

They run the risk of filling them out wrong and not getting certified.

As Stephanie Penrose, the Trumbull elections board director, said during the Aug. 14 meeting in which seven candidates weren’t certified: “We do everything but fill these out for them and circulate them.”

She added: “We don’t like taking bad petitions. We tell them, ‘Please go over this and look at each part of the petition to make sure you have everything done.'”

Even if candidates in Trumbull don’t go to the elections board office, the same information given to candidates when they pick up petitions there is available on the board’s website.

In Mahoning County, there is an example with the places highlighted in yellow where candidates are to fill in spaces on petitions.

Also, if you see empty spaces on your nominating petition, that should be a sign that you’re missing something.

In between sighing and laughing while the board voted Monday against certifying 21 candidates and two liquor options, Mahoning board Chairman David Betras said, “The bar is so low for petitions.”

I have been covering politics in the Mahoning Valley for 25 years and for the first — and second — time the Mahoning board didn’t certify candidates because they didn’t even submit enough signatures on their petitions to qualify. It wasn’t that they turned in petitions and the board ruled signatures were ineligible and they got under the required amount to qualify. These two candidates — Patrick Sculli and John Schuler — didn’t submit the minimum number of signatures on their petitions.

What made this even more remarkable is they were both running for the Canfield school board and needed to collect a mere 25 signatures. Both turned in petitions with 24 signatures. Kudos to both of them for only having one each removed. But not knowing that you need at least 25 signatures to qualify for the board is unbelievable.

When I see candidates who need a certain number of signatures and collect one or two more, I wonder what they’re thinking because you can actually collect up to three times the number of signatures required, and often there are problems with some of them.

In some cases, there’s no helping a candidate.

When Aleesha Foster sought to run as an independent candidate for Youngstown mayor, she filed petitions with 139 signatures. She needed at least 134 to be valid to get on the ballot so she was already in trouble. Somehow, she had only a little more than 40 signatures validated.

Then there are the candidates who don’t know where they live.

Jennifer Ciccone was ruled ineligible to run for Poland Township trustee because she incorrectly identified Mahoning as her township on one of her petitions. She knew she lived in Poland on her other petition and forgot it on the other.

Ciccone is the county’s deputy clerk of courts and is one of the highest paid nonelected officials in the county, claiming she works 80 hours per week.

Betras said, “Running the clerk of courts, she should know this and be smart enough to figure that out,” and mentioned her high salary.

Board Director Tom McCabe, who is chairman of the county Republican Party’s executive committee, said of Ciccone, a fellow Republican, “How does she have time to even do a second job?”

Betras said, “I don’t know. She says she’s working 80 hours a week.”

Ciccone lost a 2023 election for Struthers Municipal Court judge, even though Gov. Mike DeWine took the unusual step of appointing her to the position prior to the election, and also lost a 2024 election for county commissioner.

There were several candidates not certified because they signed and dated their petitions after signatures were collected, and failed to fill the required sections on their petitions.

It wasn’t just those new to doing this.

Of the 21 candidates who weren’t certified in Mahoning County, nine were incumbents as well as at least two others who have run for elected office before.

Of the seven candidates in Trumbull not certified, five of them were incumbents.

David Skolnick covers politics for the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator.