Lansing – Independent presidential candidate Cornel West was certified to run in Michigan on Monday, although his eligibility is still being challenged in court.
The Michigan Board of State Canvassers voted 3-1 to allow the liberal activist, author and academic to run on the November 5 general election ballot, despite allegations that the signatures of the walkers in the sample examined by the Bureau of Elections were forged.
Attorney Mark Brewer, who represents a voter who is contesting the signatures, said he plans to appeal Monday’s decision. Another appeal is already pending in the appeals court challenging West’s eligibility to vote based on alleged deficiencies in his identification statement.
“The Board of Elections just put a fraudster on the ballot,” Brewer said after the three-hour meeting on Monday. “… This is a scandal. This is a violation of their duties. And we will appeal.”
The subject of Monday’s meeting was questions about the signatures of the people who forwarded the nominating petition that voters used to put West on the ballot.
Brewer listed seven mailers whose signatures he believed were forged, pointing out differences in handwriting between the various pages signed by the mailers.
The Michigan elections office, which determined there were enough signatures and recommended certification, said the procedures they had in place did not require or provide for a comparison of the distributors’ signatures. But even if those distributors’ signatures had been forged and their sheets thrown out, West would still have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, said state elections director Jonathan Brater.
“I’m not sure what we would do with that information other than reissue the same staff report,” Brater said of an investigation into the mailing lists’ signatures.
Brewer had claimed that, in addition to the challenges by mailers and the challenges to individual voter signatures, West also had enough evidence to show that the required hurdle for certification had not been met.
Brandon Debus, a lawyer for West’s campaign, argued that it was too late to apply new mailing list verification procedures to an individual candidate’s filing just because he was an unpopular candidate.
“We’ve been going around in circles here,” Debus said. “We’re advocating taking the rules and the process and changing them at the last minute because we don’t like the result.”
Richard Houskamp, a member of the state Republican Campaign Committee, pointed out that the office follows a rigorous process in reviewing petitions.
“We are currently discussing whether another part needs to be added to this process, which, to be honest, should not put the applicant at risk,” Houskamp said.
Mary Ellen Gurewitz, a Democrat and chair of the Board of State Canvassers, argued that West could not be disenfranchised by simply asking the West campaign for additional evidence regarding the identities and signatures of its signers. Gurewitz was the only member of the board to vote against certification.
“Personally, I believe that I have not fulfilled my obligation to check the validity of this application if I have not received assurances that the certificates from the distribution companies are not forged,” said Gurewitz.
The Michigan Bureau of Elections disqualified West earlier this month because of problems with the notarization of West’s identity statement.
Michigan Court of Claims Judge James Robert Redford overturned the office’s decision on Saturday, arguing that West was not required to file an affidavit of identity in the first place because he had provided the required number of valid signatures.
The decision was appealed to the Michigan State Court of Appeals on Sunday.
