Resident attempts to keep Beeson off ballot
Yuma City Council member Cody Beeson is the target of a court challenge by a city resident attempting to prevent Beeson from being placed on the ballots for the City of Yuma primary election.
Robert Johnson filed a complaint on June 10 alleging that many of the signatures Beeson collected were invalid, therefore he failed to secure his spot on the ballot.
Candidates running for city council are required under state law to collect between 242 and 403 valid signatures from registered city voters. In his complaint, Johnson alleges that of the 276 signatures that Beeson collected, 60 are allegedly invalid.
The complaint alleges that 17 signatures are invalid because the signers do not reside in the City of Yuma, 30 signatures are invalid because the signers are not registered to vote, and two signatures are invalid because the signers are convicted felons.
Other allegations claim that 10 of the signatures are invalid because the circulator collecting the signatures was a felon, and one of the signatures is invalid because the signature does not match the printed name.
Therefore, Johnson’s complaint alleges that only 216 of the 276 signatures are valid.
Should the judge rule in favor of Johnson’s complaint, the Yuma city clerk would be required to verify each signature and determine which are valid and which should be disqualified.
The complaint also seeks to have a judge, based on the number of valid signatures, make a determination on Beeson’s ballot status. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for June 22 at 10 a.m.
Beeson, who is running for his third term, is one
of four candidates seeking three open seats on the city council. When asked, he declined to comment on the matter other than saying he was looking forward to the matter being resolved once and for all in court.
The others who have filed to run are Deputy Mayor Edward Thomas, an employee of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, who will seek his second four-year term on the council, Jacob Miller, who finished fifth in the 2013 general election for the council and ran against District 5 County Supervisor Greg Ferguson in the 2012 Republican primary, and Mike Shelton, former public affairs manager for the City of Yuma and Rural/Metro.
According to City of Yuma Spokesperson Dave Nash, it is the duty of the courts and not the city clerk to determine the legal sufficiency of nomination petitions. The clerk need only determine that the nomination petitions are substantially in regular form and contain the requisite number of signatures.
Essentially, Nash said, the clerk has neither the right nor the duty to determine whether signers of the nominating petitions are qualified electors.
He also stated that the City of Yuma is defending City Clerk Lynda Bushong, who is also named in the court challenge, and that Beeson will provide his own legal counsel.
The city, additionally, has filed an official request asking for assistance in signature certification from the Yuma County Recorder’s Office. Nash said the city has no further information or comment at this time.