It appears there will be 22 candidates on the ballot in November vying for the nine open seats on Cincinnati City Council.
As of today's 4 p.m. filing deadline at the Board of Elections, that's the number of people who had submitted petitions with enough voter signatures. At least five of those candidates, however, haven't yet had the signatures verified by Elections Board staffers because they only filed their final petitions today.—-
The would-be candidates still awaiting signature verification are Democrats Nicholas Hollan and Jason Riveiro, Republican Catherine Smith Mills, and independents Jacqueline Allen and Kathy Atkinson.
Other candidates who filed the sufficient number of signatures and who will appear on the Nov. 8 ballot are Democrats Roxanne Qualls, Laure Quinlivan, Chris Seelbach, P.G. Sittenfeld, Cecil Thomas and Wendell Young.
They will be joined by Republicans Leslie Ghiz, Wayne Lippert, Amy Murray and Charlie Winburn. Charterites Chris Bortz, Kevin Flynn and Yvette Simpson also filed.
Also appearing on the ballot will be independents Mike Allen, a former Hamilton County prosecutor who left politics for awhile due to a sex scandal; Patricia McCollum; Sandra Queen Noble; and local NAACP president Christopher Smitherman.
Another person, Orlando Welborn, has told the board he is running as a write-in candidate.
People who had taken out petitions from the Board of Elections but who didn't return them with enough signatures or decided not to run were Theo Barnes, James Ingram, Robert Jacobs, George Johnson, Roger Marksberry, Peterson Mingo, Weston Munzel, Gary Pierce, Eric Thompson and Edith Thrower.
