By Jim Newell
Managing Editor, and
Shelby Stewart-Soldan
Staff Writer
OXFORD TWP. — There are eight candidates running for six seats on the Oxford Public Library Board in the Nov. 5 General Election, each for a four-year term.
But a filing error – not checking the box for the Aug. 6 Primary Election – led to all the candidates being disqualified. Now, all eight candidates must run as write-in candidates.
Paul Gerard Brunett, Julie Ann Fracker, Kathleen A. Hoeflein, Barbara Jean Kriigel, Ronald Lee Nelson, Anthony Michael Rizzo, Lynn Ann Royster and DuAnne K. Salswedel are all running as write-in candidates for the Oxford Library Board.
Hoeflein, Rizzo, Royster, Fracker, Salswedel and Kriigel are currently on the board, while Brunett and Nelson are challenging for two seats.
Voters will have to actually write in the names of the candidates they support – and fill in the box next to each name – instead of just being able to fill in the box next to each name as with other candidates whose names appear on the ballot.
“If more than twice the number to be elected have filed, the county is required to put it on the primary,” said Joe Rozell, director of elections for Oakland County. “If less than that file, it gets pushed to the general election in November.”
This confusion is what led to the current filing fiasco – library board members had previously always been on the November ballot because 13 candidates had not filed for those seats. In 2020, the election for library board members in Brandon, Holly and Oxford, as well as many other townships, were on the November general election ballot.
Library board candidates in Holly and Brandon townships, three long-serving library board members in Orion Township, and 10 candidates in Oakland Township face the same situation as the Oxford library board candidates.
Candidates for the library board had to file by the April 23 filing deadline in accordance with state law, which is the deadline for the August Primary.
“While these folks may have been completing this form wrong in years past, it is in violation of election law,” said Rozell. “That is a primary office. In 2021 the law changed and said that if the affidavit of identity is not filled out correctly, they cannot appear on the ballot.”
The law in question is an amendment to 1954 Public Act 116, section 558. It states that an affidavit of identity must contain the date of the election in which the candidate wishes to appear on the ballot, but the amendment does not give provisions for library boards, which could potentially appear on the primary or the general election. The amendment was signed into law in 2021.