Wrong Paperwork Gets County Board Candidate Tossed From Ballot

Milwaukee County Courthouse. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

A candidate for Milwaukee County Board in District 12, a southside seat, has been tossed from the ballot despite turning in enough nomination signatures.

Ryan Antczak, a former Republican Assembly candidate, circulated nomination signatures using the wrong paperwork. The Milwaukee County Election Commission reviewed the matter during a meeting Friday. Antczak’s opponent, incumbent Sup. Juan Miguel Martinez, attended the meeting to challenge Antczak’s plea for ballot access.

Antczak can appeal the decision to the Wisconsin Election Commission.

“I’ll be reviewing my options in the best interest of the voters,” he said, “including intensifying my focus on my Aldermanic race.” He is also running for District 8 on the Milwaukee Common Council, challenging the incumbent Alderwoman JoCasta Zamarripa.

Martinez was represented in his challenge by veteran elections attorney Michael Maistelman. “If you want to run for an office that makes law, you have to follow the law,” said the attorney.

When Antczak circulated nomination papers for the non-partisan race, he used nomination forms for a partisan election. There are some differences between the two forms. Notably, one says “Nomination for Partisan Office” and includes a party affiliation.

“I thought it was odd,” he said of the forms he circulated, “but I put my party that I felt I associated best with.”

On the partisan nomination papers, there is a box that asks for political affiliation. Antczak wrote Republican, and, as he explained to the election commission, his campaign did not want to get dinged for not filling in a particular box.

County Board and Common Council races are nonpartisan, with candidates running without a party affiliation.

Sup. Deanna Alexander, a conservative, rose to speak in favor of ballot access for Antczak, though not as a formal representative of his campaign. The supervisor argued that while there are differences between the two nomination papers, they are still very similar and that Antczak’s campaign otherwise included all the correct and necessary information.

Martinez’ campaign took a different view. Maistelman argued that the nomination papers are not in compliance with state law, and that the point of these papers is to provide information to citizens who are being asked to support a candidate for office. Antczak’s nomination papers indicated he was running for a partisan seat, he said, and adding information, like a political party, is not appropriate for a nonpartisan race.

“The seat that the respondent circulated nomination papers for does not exist,” Maistelman said.

The commission, on party lines, voted 2-1 to remove Antczak from the ballot. Democratic appointees Tim Posnanski and Dawn Martin voted in favor. Republican appointee Helmut Fritz voted in opposition.