County Clerk Candidate Left Off Ballot by County Clerk

9/19/2000
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Tim O'Brien
(313) 562-5778

DEARBORN. "What more proof do we need," asked Nancy O'Brien, Libertarian Party candidate for Wayne County Clerk, "that we desperately need a competent person running the clerk's office in Wayne County?"

She was referring to the fact that that very office left her name off the ballot for the November 7 election as a candidate for it.

"Of all of the Clerk's responsibilities," she continued, "what could be more important than accurately preparing the election ballot?" The question was clearly rhetorical.

The oversight came to light when the LP candidate, wondering why she had not yet received a proof ballot prior to its printing for absentee voters, went to her hometown clerk's office in Allen Park and inquired about the status of the process. A call by an assistant there to the Wayne County Clerk's office got a listing of all the certified candidates. Ms. O'Brien -- who brought along documentation of her nomination by the Libertarian Party of Michigan for Wayne County Clerk -- was surprised to discover that she was not considered a candidate for that office by that office. But not very surprised.

"How exquisitely appropriate," she remarked with no small appreciation of the irony of the situation. "Wayne County is so completely dominated by incompetent Democrats that they apparently considered the election over after the primary. The fact that the Democrat candidate is a respiratory therapist with a degree from a correspondence school and no experience in government whatever is, for them, entirely beside the point. The Democrats have made their choice," she observed, "so, who cares about the general election?"

A follow-up call to the Bureau of Elections in Lansing revealed that O'Brien had not only been left off the ballot entirely, but in at least one district another party's candidate had been listed on the Libertarian ballot line.

"Like most everyone else I had often heard about the incompetence in Wayne County government," she concluded, "but you really can't appreciate just how absurd it is until you actually get involved and try to do something about it."