Clerk’s failure risks ‘disenfranchisement’ of Kenton County voters

The Northern Kentucky Tea Party is taking its battle to give voters the right to dissolve a costly government agency to the court room.

A lawsuit was filed today after Kenton County Clerk Gabrielle Summe refusal to certify a petition to place the future of the Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission on the November ballot. Even after local Tea Party members found thousands found valid signatures that had been rejected, Summe refused to relent.

Tea party officials say the limitations of an “antiquated system” used by Summe “crippled the Clerk’s ability to verify the registration status of many voters because the data was not searchable by any method other than by way of correctly spelled name.”

(Read the full release here.)

Tea Party members say they found thousands of names that should have been counted – by using an up-to-date, searchable-friendly system.

“Today’s software contains new methods and technologies which didn’t exist 32 years ago,” today’s news release said. “”The clerk did not search for and identify individuals as registered voters by confirming the signatures they used according to their address if, for example, they signed the petition with a nick name rather than the full legal name under which they registered to vote.”

Had Summe used “proper procedures … the voters of Kenton County would not be facing the risk of disenfranchisement which her decision now threatens,” said Marcus Carey, the Tea Party's attorney.

This is not over ... not by a long shot.