The Marshall County Election Board members have scheduled two hearings after looking into written complaints filed by Nicole Haskins at the last Election Board meeting.
Clerk Deb VanDeMark said several individuals have amended their campaign finance reports. The complaint against Will Patterson had missing pages and amounts and had campaign money at the beginning of 2022 but no record of where that money came from after his campaign was disbanded in 2020. VanDeMark said Patterson came into the Clerk’s Office and amended paperwork was filed.
On the complaint against Jim Masterson, there were two items that were not split three ways and that report was amended.
Steve Harper and Mandy Campbell amended their campaign finance reports with the proper coding.
VanDeMark said there was no violation with Nicole Cox as she is allowed to use campaign money to use something that is campaign related so her use of campaign funds to buy a ticket toward the Lincoln Day dinner was allowed.
There will be a hearing concerning Stan Klotz’s campaign finance report. The complaint was that Klotz took a donation and a bank account to receipt that was not included on his campaign finance report. Klotz filed an amendment. However, VanDeMark said an account was opened on February 18, 2022 with Lake City Bank, but the funds were donated in December 2021. VanDeMark said the law states that a bank account has to be listed within 10 days of the donation. The board decided to allow a hearing on May 13 at noon ET.
As for the complaint against Bill Githens, Tim Harman and Jesse Bohannon, VanDeMark said there are errors on campaign finance reports, and there is a form that can be sent to them to correct errors. Haskins complained that each candidate claimed all in-kind contributions to individual campaigns and it should have been split between each candidate. She claimed that the reports were defective as it appeared that four times the amount was spent on local elections.
The board will hold a hearing concerning the corporate donation toward two candidates and a pack. The minimum amount a corporation can donate is $2,000. The complaint was that $2,000 total was donated to Nicole Cox and Deb Johnson, and another $2,000 to the Better Government Hears People pack. VanDeMark said it was $2,000 too much, per state statute. The hearing will be May 13 at noon ET.
