Court cannot remove suspended judge from ballot
Court News Ohio
The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today that it cannot order the Sandusky County Board of Elections to remove a suspended judge seeking reelection from the Nov. 3 general election ballot.
In a per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that the board of elections correctly decided that under state law it could not permit a protest to the candidacy of Sandusky County Common Pleas Court Judge Jon Ickes. His opponent for the office filed a protest in August after Ickes won the Republican primary election in May. The Court also noted that the board, on its own, could not have considered removing Ickes from the ballot if the board found he was no longer qualified to hold office.
The Court suspended Ickes from the practice of law in August for two years and removed him from judicial office. Sandusky County Common Pleas Court Magistrate Kimberly Ontko, an independent candidate challenging Ickes in the general election, asked the board of elections to remove Ickes from the ballot. She argued his suspension no longer qualifies him to hold the office.
The board met four days after Ontko filed her protest and denied it on the grounds that it was filed too late. She then asked the Supreme Court for a writ of prohibition to prevent the board from placing Ickes on the ballot, or in the alternative, to prohibit the board from declaring Ickes the winner of the election.
In today’s opinion, the Court explained that under R.C. 3501.39, and its 2002 ruling in Whitman v. Hamilton Cty. Bd. of Elections, a protest against the petition of a candidate can only be filed prior to the primary election. The board had no authority to consider Ontko’s challenge filed in August, several months after Ickes was certified as a candidate for judge.
Justices R. Patrick DeWine, Joseph T. Deters, Daniel R. Hawkins, and Megan E. Shanahan joined the per curiam opinion.
Justice Jennifer Brunner concurred, noting that current law does not provide the Court with the ability to prevent voters from being “presented with a ballot that contains the name of a judicial candidate who is ineligible to hold the office for which he seeks election.”
Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy and Justice Patrick F. Fischer concurred in judgment only.