Elections Division Rejects Troy Mayor's Petition Challenge

The Oakland County Elections Division recently rejected Troy Mayor Janice Daniels' attempt to challenge the validity of the , refuting her claims that the "type size" used in the petitions invalidates the petitions and the signatures.

"On June 18th, our office concluded a preliminary review of the petitions and determined that the petitions are in proper form and that they can contain in excess of the minimum number of signatures required to begin examining for genuineness of registration and signature," Director of Elections Joe Rozell wrote in a June 20 letter to Daniels.

Rozell also cited the Michigan law regulating the font size on petitions, which states the "name, address, and party affiliation of the candidate and the ofice for which petitions are signed shall be printed in type not larger than 24-point."

"As you have identified, these font sizes are 12 and 10 point type, which are in compliance with MCL 168.544c," Rozell wrote.

He added, "Even if there was an error in the petition formatting, the time to challenge the recall petition has passed."

“It looks like she’s trying to short circuit the recall on a technicality," Recall Janice Daniels founder Matt Binkowski said Monday morning.

"In bringing a challenge to the petitions based on font size, Mayor Daniels clearly demonstrated that she is ignoring the will and hard work of the people of Troy," read a statement released Monday afternoon by Recall Janice Daniels.

“I’m not going to discuss strategy at this point,” Daniels said, refusing further comment Monday afternoon.

The Oakland County Elections Division "should probably know on Thursday" how many signatures are valid, Rozell said.

Daniels has 30 days to contest the signatures. If at least 7,985 of the 9,300 signatures submitted by the political action committee Recall Janice Daniels on June 12 are determined to be valid, the recall language will be placed on the Nov. 6 ballot in Troy.

"It would be a yes or no question," Troy City Clerk Aileen Bittner said. “The law says that if there are more yes votes than no votes, that’s it.”

Bittner said what would happen next, if the mayor is recalled, is tricky.

“According to the charter, in the absence of the mayor, the mayor pro tem assumes responsibilities. Beyond that, the city attorney and I would need to do an analysis to determine what would happen next.”

Complete coverage

Daniels first came under fire in December for her  and has remained the center of controversy after  (a  was later approved), telling the  Gay-Straight Alliance she would bring in an expert to tell them  and writing a lengthy position paper some viewed as .

For comprehensive coverage of the recall effort, visit the Troy Mayor Janice Daniels topic page. For the latest Troy news and information, follow Troy Patch on Facebook and Twitter.