Despite Not Following Finance Law, Seven Huntington Municipal Election Candidates to Remain on Ballot
Six candidates for Huntington City Council and one for the mayoral race have seemingly violated a campaign finance law that should have prevented them from appearing on the ballot. If they win, their candidacy could be challenged in court.
Written by Kyle Vass, Oct. 31, 2024
Updated on November 4, 2024: After initially reporting this story, the Huntington City Clerk has confirmed that in total, seven candidates for Huntington’s municipal elections have failed to turn in their finance reports in time for ballot eligibility. Those candidates are Jason Arthur, Sasha Chapman, Carl Eastham, Josh Garnes, Stacy Jo Holley, Pat Jones, and Jay Michaels.
All candidates will remain on the ballot but their eligibility, if elected, could be challenged under W. Va. Code §3-7-6. Under the law, those challenges would be directed to Huntington City Council and could be appealed to Cabell County Circuit Court.
In a request for comment, Huntington City Council Chairperson Sarah Walling said “Honesty, integrity, and transparency are critical to the election process. They are also essential values to hold elected office. As the current Chair of City Council, I take any discrepancies in campaign finance reporting very seriously. I will ensure that these issues are properly investigated and that all election laws are followed with respect to City Council seats. The City will also address any related personnel matters internally.”
The headline of this story has been changed to reflect the number of candidates now confirmed to be affected.
Managing a city clerk’s office is no small task. As Huntington City Clerk Barbara Miller said, “When elections roll around, we still have work to do for the city council meetings, the police, the fire department, etc.”
But while collecting campaign finance reports for the twenty-three candidates running for municipal office in Huntington is just one of the duties of their two-person office, it’s a big one. If a candidate fails to give them even one their first three campaign finance reports by a certain date, that candidate could be disqualified from appearing on the ballot.
A chart of campaign finance reports that were due 84 days before the general election shows the name of the report (left), the timeframe they cover (middle), and the week they were initially due to be turned in (right).
According to records from the city clerk’s office and email responses from the West Virginia Secretary of State’s, two candidates running for Huntington City Council failed to meet campaign finance requirements to appear on the ballot . As this information was discovered late in the election season, the candidates will be allowed to remain on the ballot, but lawsuits could challenge their eligibility.
A Dragline analysis of campaign finance reports filed with the City of Huntington shows that Stacy Jo Holley and Jason Arther likely violated W. Va. Code § 3-8-7(c)(1) – a law that stipulates candidates running for municipal elections must have all outstanding campaign finance reports turned in 84 days before the general election.
The law reads “Any candidate . . . who has failed to file any sworn statement as required by this article relating to the immediately preceding primary election for any office by the 84th day before the general election, is disqualified and may not have his or her name appear on the general election ballot. . . .” (“Sworn statements” here refer to campaign finance reports which all include a statement at the end signed by candidates affirming that their reports are true and accurate.)
For this election, that means candidates would have had to turn in their first quarter, primary, and second quarter reports before Tuesday, August 13, 2024, in order to be eligible for the general election.
Arthur and Holley turned in their first quarter reports but didn’t turn in their primary or second quarter reports. (Arthur submitted his primary report to the city clerk the same day this article was published – 26 weeks after it was initially due and 11 weeks after the deadline set in state code).
However, according to West Virginia’s Chief Deputy Secretary of State Donald Kersey, because this discovery was made so late in the election season and early voting is already underway, these candidates will remain on the ballot absent an injunction from a court.
In a request for comment, Kersey said, “Early voting ends Saturday and election day is Tuesday, so to print and place stickers to correct absentee ballots, reissue in time, and reprogram machines, I don’t know if there’s actually time. The county is at the behest of their voting machine vendor to correct the machine error, so only they could try and fix the absentee ballots in house. But again, time is short and there’s a hard deadline of those ballots being postmarked by the voters on election day.”
Another option, Kersey added, is that courts could get involved should a lawsuit be filed before or after the election. “[Courts] can order special remedies such as keeping materials the same and posting notices in voting booths/on check-in tables that the candidate is not eligible and a vote for the candidate will not be counted.”
Candidate eligibility can also be challenged post-election pursuant to W. Va. State Code §3-7-6 and §3-7-7. Kersey said of that process, “That’s a quasi-judicial process with the main difference being the County Commission sits as the tribunal that would hear the eligibility challenge. Once they make their findings, the decision can be appealed to Circuit Court.”
Holley, one of the candidates who remain on the ballot despite failing to meet finance report requirements, made local headlines for involvement in the rally that led to the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021. On her way back from the event, Holley told WSAZ “I was on the outside, and they busted the door,” adding, “We were about ten people behind when they got into the front door, and then we were tear gassed and flash bombed.”
Stacy Jo Holley speaks with WSAZ reporter Andrew Coalgrove on her way back from the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
While Arthur and Holley are the only candidates that the Huntington City Clerk has confirmed so far that have not met their requirements to file their initial reports in a manner that satisfies state code, that office is still in the process of handing over the entirety the reports that were due before August 13, 2024 with the city. This story will be updated to reflect any developments as these reports come in.