Conservation District Elections during a pandemic

[Lisa Knauf Owen]

The notice of filing period legal notices are scheduled to begin here in Oklahoma during the next couple weeks for Conservation District elections. Our election process is laid out in statute and rule and require a legal notice be published twice between certain dates notifying people of the upcoming filing period in May. We have received word that some of the counties where there is only one newspaper that publishes Legal Notices are suspending printing due to Covid-19. Are there other states having similar issues? If so, what solutions are you coming up with to address them? We are considering postponing elections in certain counties due to the inability to publish notices. Any thoughts and ideas are most welcome. Stay safe. Lisa

[Mike Brown]

Lisa, in many states, rule can be worked around by emergency executive order of some sort. Statute not so much, unless the statute includes verbiage for how to deal with emergencies like this.

[Paulette Akers]

In Kentucky, non-partisan candidates are required to have 25 signatures on a petition by June 2nd to appear on the November ballot. Our primary election is delayed, but the dates for petition filing is set in statute. We have no authority, but I am sure the state Board of Elections is getting questions.

[Kent Zimmerman]

If you have a paper that is considered “Statewide Circulation” you should be covered. We have counties that no longer have newspapers, so we either use an adjacent county paper that delivers in the necessary county, or in some instances we only use the Omaha World Herald. Also, some of our papers have on line subscription service.

[Lisa Knauf Owen]

Thanks Kent, that might actually work for us. I appreciate the information.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Aaron.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Aaron.

[Brad Spicer]

Consistent with the Governors Executive Order, Louisiana has postponed districts supervisors elections.

[Bill Eller]

Our conservation district election rules do not require the publication of the notice in the legal section of the newspaper. Our first notice must be published in a newspaper, but if the notice includes a reference to the effect that “all further notices will be electronic on the district’s web page,” then we allow all other notices to be put on the conservation district’s web page. However, we always encourage all conservation districts to go beyond the minimum for election notice publication by putting notices in their monthly newsletters, on-line, in the newspaper, and in other media. Provide notice early and often, is what we tell our districts.

In your particular circumstance, you might be restricted to what your statute says. Our statute is very broad, so we have some flexibility, especially when emergencies occur. We had three elections directly impacted by COVID-19 social distancing, but were able make accommodations because our rules allow for that.

If you cannot make accommodations and must publish notices in newspapers that are not currently publishing due to COVID-19 considerations, then there doesn’t appear to be any other option for you besides postponing elections until the newspapers begin running again.

Perhaps you can adopt an emergency rule (or get an emergency rule adopted) that allows for the publications of the notices in other media / formats – mainly on-line. Our Commission has declined to certify elections in the past that have violated our rules, and in those instances the district has to go to superior court to get the court to order a new election (because our statute doesn’t allow for elections outside the January – March months). When that happens, the current board member retains that seat until the new election is held.

Voter turnout, already problematic in special purpose districts, has been hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic – at least here in Washington State. That also could be a reason to postpone the election until social distancing restrictions are relaxed.

Sorry I couldn’t be more help! Good luck with your elections!

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