Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has formally cleared newly appointed Ninth District Court of Appeals Judge Nathan Manning to appear on the Nov. 3 general election ballot, resolving a high-profile eligibility challenge initiated by Summit County Democratic officials.
The ballot dispute arrived before LaRose after members of the Summit County Board of Elections reached a stalemate during a Sept. 8 hearing. The local election board split evenly along partisan lines in a 2-2 vote on whether the North Ridgeville Republican was legally permitted to run for the appellate judgeship after previously winning his party's spring primary for a state legislative seat.
The appellate seat opened earlier this year following the retirement of Judge Donna Carr, who stepped down from the bench on May 31. Following her departure, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine appointed Manning in July to fill the vacancy on an interim basis.
Under Ohio law, gubernatorial judicial appointments to fill unexpired terms are temporary. Manning holds the judicial seat only until voters across the district select a candidate in the November general election to complete the remainder of Carr's unexpired term.
Manning’s path to the appellate court followed a transition away from the state legislature. He previously served in the Ohio Senate but could not seek reelection to the chamber due to statutory term limits, prompting him to run for the Ohio House of Representatives, where he won the Republican primary to represent District 52.
After DeWine selected him for the Ninth District bench in July, Manning resigned from his seat in the Ohio Senate and withdrew his candidacy for the Ohio House seat. In August, the Republican Party’s central committee formally selected and certified him as the party's nominee to contest the unexpired appellate term in November.
Summit County Democratic Party leaders subsequently mounted a formal protest against Manning’s inclusion on the ballot. Spearheaded by Summit County Democratic Party Chair Mark Derrig, the challenge argued that election laws bar a candidate who has won a primary nomination for one office from being selected to run for a different office in the general election.
Representing the challengers, attorney Tom Bevan based the protest on the concluding sentence of Ohio Revised Code Section 3513.31(I). That statutory provision states that if an individual has secured a nomination in a primary election or through a nominating petition, the party’s authorized committee cannot subsequently select and certify that person as a candidate.
In an official determination letter sent to the county board of elections on Sept. 11, LaRose rejected the Democratic protest, ruling that Derrig's challenge lacked legal standing under the Ohio Revised Code.
LaRose highlighted that the right to formally protest a candidacy is strictly regulated by state statute and exists exclusively where the Ohio General Assembly has explicitly provided for it. He noted that lawmakers have enacted specific protest mechanisms for various scenarios that come before election boards, but did not extend them to this specific vacancy process.
In addition to the issue of standing, the Secretary of State deemed the complaint moot on the merits. LaRose determined that because Manning had already withdrawn his candidacy for the Ohio House before being certified for the judgeship, he was not a candidate for another office at the time of certification, nor was he attempting to run for two offices simultaneously in November.
To reinforce his legal interpretation, LaRose pointed to Ohio Supreme Court precedent set in the 2009 case *State ex rel. Scherach v. Lorain County Board of Elections*. In that decision, the state high court observed that had lawmakers intended for committee vacancy replacements under Section 3513.31(I) to be treated as formal declarations of candidacy subject to statutory protests, they would have inserted specific language to govern them.
The decision drew criticism from Bevan, a former member of the Summit County Board of Elections and a past chairman of the county Democratic Party. Bevan maintained that the Secretary of State had disregarded statutory requirements in dismissing the challenge.
Following the ruling, Bevan stated that Derrig was evaluating further legal options, including the possibility of appealing the administrative decision directly to the Ohio Supreme Court.
With the Secretary of State's ruling in place, Manning is slated to face Democratic nominee Tavia Galonski, who currently serves as the Summit County Clerk of Courts, in the upcoming November election.
The winner of the contest will serve on the Ninth District Court of Appeals, which exercises judicial appellate jurisdiction across Summit, Medina, Wayne, and Lorain counties.
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