The husband of a Miami Township woman who planned to run for a seat on the board of trustees is facing criminal charges after allegedly forging signatures on the petition to run for office.
Steve Boardwine, 23, helped his wife Karla, 21, collect signatures on the petition that would place her on the November ballot. Mike Keeley, Director of the Clermont County Board of Elections, said that the process is identical to what all public servants have to go through to become a candidate in an election.
“The candidate takes out a petition to run for office, and each petition sheet has 25 signatures on it,” said Keeley. “There are so many specified signatures for each particular office. The board of elections always recommends that, if the required amount is 25 signatures, you should get 35 in case some of the signatures aren’t valid. If you ask someone if they are a registered voter and they say yes, but our staff gets to checking and it turns out they aren’t, that signature gets voided. We encourage people to get more than the minimum amount.”
It was, however, during the process of checking the petition to make sure that there were enough valid signatures, that some discrepancies were discovered, said Keeley.