DEAR EDITOR:

The Columbiana County Board of Elections certified petitions of candidacy, including those that after lawful examination, passed. However, other filings were having some very unorthodox handling and outcomes.

Among them was a petition filed for fiscal officer in Unity Township. This invalidated, fatally flawed petition filing was by my now-opponent in the same race. Having been appointed to the position in December 2024, Ohio Revised Code Election Law requires this person to run in the Nov. 4 General Election.

As reported, the petition failed in requirements long well-established within Ohio Revised Code Election Law.

The findings of petition pass / fail processes are submitted to the elections board for certification as such. However, in the case of this Unity Township petition invalidated due to a fatal flaw, a mechanical pass was invoked, enabling the petitioner to go on the November ballot.

Another petition, which at minimum presses against historical norms, is one within the Wayne Township trustee race. The candidate had some kind of revelatory finding that his petition, as initially filed, had within it an invalidating fatal flaw. The petitioner was enabled to “Withdraw” the original petition and, within days, submitted a “New Filing,” obviously now in corrected form.

There is also a pending question regarding a petition filing related to the Perry Township trustee race. A candidate is in question of allegedly not submitting a full legal name. The question relates to the use of vs. absence of a hyphenated name.

Each of these cases calls for further discovery, Rule of Law reaffirmation and legislative action.

The Rule of Law and the Spirit of the Law are not in opposition. To displace the Rule of Law is to advance lawlessness.

To contort it, contriving some sort of political “Outcome Based Education” result or to tilt the scales, picking winners and losers, is a certain spiral downward in corruption.

Three Columbiana County township races have looming targeting by political forces pressing for agenda-driven outcomes — namely, Perry, Fairfield and Unity townships. Perry Township’s nefariously sought outcome carries an additional prize. That likely being another attempted future vote related to a sought Salem annexation of Perry Township properties for Salem’s gain of increased tax revenue.

Our Columbiana County’s scourge of political revenge is venomous against certain candidates in each of these townships. Be on alert for incoming! It is broadly demonstrated as dangerously costly to make the Candyman mad!

MARK E. GUY

East Palestine