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There has been much discussion with respect to the Dickinson County Board recall effort falling short. I would like to present the entire picture with respect to signatures. There were 691 recall signatures presented to the clerk's office for board Chairman Dan Harrington. This was 15% more signatures than needed.
What happen with these extra signatures? One was removed due to the signer entering their birthdate instead of the date signed (understandable). Ten more were removed due to five individuals signing twice. Why both the duplicate and original signatures were removed, I do not know.
Then there were 14 signatures from non-registered individuals. Another 24 were from out of district; an example is someone from Kevin Sullivan's district signed the petition for Mr. Harrington. There were 10 signatures where the signer wanted to recall Mr. Harrington but signed the wrong precinct petition sheet: the example here is an individual signed a Breitung Township petition vs. an Iron Mountain petition.
Finally, 44 signatures were determined unintelligible. That is to say, the signer is a registered voter, signed the correct sheet, and entered the correct date but the signature was determined to be non-readable.
There were no recall petitions submitted for the other three commissioners. The recall canvassing plan was to get signatures first for Mr. Harrington. The plan then was to move on to the other three commissioners canvassing for Victoria Jakel second, Mr. Sullivan third, and finally Peter Swanson. If you remember, June and July had several weeks lost due to 90-degree weather and smoked-filled air. There were individuals who randomly stopped by the signature station and signed petitions for these commissioners.