Akron school board member Amy Reeves Grom could not persuade the Summit County Board of Elections Tuesday morning to count voters who printed their names on her petitions instead of signing them.Grom, who was running for a second term, fell 13 valid signatures short on her petitions to run in November.She met Friday with officials who gave her hope that it would reconsider eight signatures.Grom then spent her Labor Day weekend with a notary public getting affidavits from those eight voters and six more, hoping to clear the 300-
signature requirement.She pleaded her case at the board’s meeting but was told Ohio law is clear: Voters generally must sign petitions with the cursive signature they used on their voter registration cards.Even if the board had decided the eight questionable signatures in her favor, she would have been five signatures short. She said she had at least five supporters who printed names instead of writing them.Two of those voters accompanied her to the meeting “I did print. I made a mistake,” Julie Pryseski told the board. “But every bit of me wanted her on that ballot.”Stephen Fassnacht also signed an affidavit affirming that he was who he said he was and he wanted Grom on the ballot. He said he printed his name because his cursive isn’t legible and he wanted officials to be able to read his name.“Unfortunately, we don’t have any latitude,” board Chairman Timothy N. Gorbach said. “There are some rules that are rules that you just can’t tiptoe around, and that’s one of them.”The board approved six write-in candidates for Akron school board: Patrick L. Bravo, Robert Roe Fox, John David Goode, Gary Hagen, Belinda J. Hinton and Cheryl Jean Shavers. At least one will win a seat because three are open and only two names will appear on the ballot: the Rev. Curtis T. Walker Sr. and Tim Miller.Ohio law does not allow Grom to run as a write-in candidate for this election.