State ex rel. Heavey v. Husted (Slip Opinion), 152 Ohio St. 3d 579

Relators Jonathan Heavey and Adam Hudak submitted a joint petition for the Democratic nomination for governor and lieutenant governor with 2,185 signatures; law requires 1,000 qualified-party electors (R.C. 3513.05).
Secretary of State Jon Husted transmitted petitions to county boards; county boards validated only 854 signatures, so Husted did not certify them for the May 8, 2018 ballot.
Heavey and Hudak filed an expedited mandamus action seeking certification, alleging at least 146 valid signatures were wrongly rejected by respondent county boards.
The boards conceded some disputed signatures; relators identified 121 allegedly-misclassified signatures in their initial filing and later alleged additional disputed signatures (including 32 marked “not genuine”).
The relators failed to produce voter-registration card exemplars or other clear-and-convincing evidence to show the challenged signatures were improperly invalidated; they thus remained below the 1,000-signature threshold.

Issue	Heavey/Hudak’s Argument	Husted/Boards’ Argument	Held
Whether relators have a clear legal right to mandamus compelling certification to the ballot	Many signatures were wrongly rejected (including for print vs cursive differences and other classifications); relators identified at least 121 invalidations and later challenged additional signatures	Boards validated their rejections based on comparisons with voter-registration records and other signature-discrepancy standards; Secretary followed board certifications	Denied — relators did not prove by clear and convincing evidence that enough signatures were wrongly rejected to reach 1,000 valid signatures
Whether the relators may rely on speculative print-vs-cursive mismatch claims to overturn "not genuine" findings	Boards improperly invalidated signatures solely because one specimen was printed and the other cursive; such speculation should not sustain invalidation	Boards may consider all manner of signature discrepancies; relators must produce the voter-registration exemplars and particularized proof of error	Denied — relators’ assumption about print/cursive mismatch was speculative and unsupported by the record; they did not present the voter-registration signatures to rebut boards’ findings

State ex rel. Waters v. Spaeth, 960 N.E.2d 452 (Ohio 2012) (mandamus prerequisites and standard of proof)
State ex rel. Stewart v. Clinton Cty. Bd. of Elections, 925 N.E.2d 601 (Ohio 2010) (no adequate remedy when election is imminent)
State ex rel. Finkbeiner v. Lucas Cty. Bd. of Elections, 912 N.E.2d 573 (Ohio 2009) (same)
State ex rel. Yiamouyiannis v. Taft, 602 N.E.2d 644 (Ohio 1992) (boards must compare petition signatures to voter-registration cards)
State ex rel. Mann v. Delaware Cty. Bd. of Elections, 34 N.E.3d 94 (Ohio 2015) (examples of invalidation where writing-style details differ)