Legislation to require unqualified candidates to pay forthe resulting election costs passed the House Rules Committee this week thanks to state Rep. Phil Richardson.
House Bill 1394, by Richardson, requires an unqualified candidate to withdraw one week after being declared unqualified based on residency by the Oklahoma Election Board or be liable for all fees and costs associated with the contest for candidacy.
Richardson said the bill was inspired by an incident in his district."An individual ran for a board seat at the Canadian Valley Technology Center in El Reno who was not qualified because the person lived outside the district. Even after the individual was made aware of ineligibility, they did not plan to withdraw," said Richardson, R-Minco. "The school had to send a school notary to the individual's residency to get them to sign the documents to withdraw in the allotted time. If the individual had not finally withdrawn, the school would have been out almost $30,000 to hold what was actually an uncontested election. That would have been very unfair and just plain wrong for the school to have to foot the bill for someone else's lack of responsibility."
Richardson noted that if a person who is unqualified
somehow gets elected, there would have to be another
election with even more costs involved.
"This bill puts a stop to any chance for someone to
create unnecessary election costs and pass the buck
to the taxpayers," Richardson said. "There's no reason
for the citizens to pay for an election involving a candidate who isn't even eligible to run.
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