Oakland Council Hopeful Seeks Court Order to Appear on Ballot After Switching Races

Prospective Oakland City Council candidate Tonya Love, whose nomination form was deemed three signatures short after she shifted from pursuing an at-large seat to District 7, announced Thursday that her campaign is seeking a court order to have her name on the ballot.

The petition, filed Tuesday in Alameda County Superior Court, seeks a writ of mandate instructing the city clerk and county registrar to certify Love’s nomination for the District 7 race. According to the petition, her nomination forms fell three verified signatures short of the 50 needed to qualify for the ballot, but upon review, she identified three signatures from registered voters “who had technical defects in their signing of the petition.”

In a post on Instagram on Thursday, Love said that her “campaign is fighting to ensure that my name is listed on the ballot for District 7 in November.”

“We are moving forward because our campaign is committed to fighting for equity and social justice for our community in District 7. We believe that every resident deserves to be represented and have access to the resources and opportunities to thrive,” the post said.

Love, the chief of staff for Councilmember Carroll Fife, initially launched a campaign for the City Council’s at-large seat in March. However, after current District 7 representative Treva Reid announced that she would not seek reelection, Love wrote on Instagram that she was “asked by [her] community to step up as the future representative of D7.”

After Reid’s announcement, which came on the filing deadline for the race, officials extended the cutoff to file for five days, through Aug. 14, spurring a number of potential candidates to make last-minute bids.

Love’s petition said that she was unable to get a nomination form until the following Monday, which left her with 48 hours to acquire the necessary signatures. She reported gathering and submitting 67 signatures on Aug. 14.

Of those, 47 were verified by the city clerk and county registrar. On Aug. 15, Love was notified that the nomination petitions she submitted were insufficient.

Love alleges that with the three signatories that were disqualified due to “technical errors,” she would have enough to appear on the ballot. Two of the three were rejected because their listed address on the nomination form did not match their registration address, though both residences are within the bounds of District 7, and the third printed but did not sign their name, according to the petition.

“Each of the three registered voters were registered within the District and put their place of residence on the nomination petition, accompanied by their signature or, in the case of [one signatory], the constructive equivalent of her signature,” the petition reads. “Therefore, their signatures should be counted and, if included in the total number of signatures already verified, allow Ms. Love to be certified as a candidate for City Council in District 7.”

Currently, the race for the seat includes four candidates: Merika Goolsby, a member of Oakland’s housing, residential rent and relocation board; Marcie Hodge, a previous trustee of Peralta Community College; Ken Houston, the leader of an East Oakland nonprofit also known as the “Son of Oakland” on social media; and Iris Merriouns, Councilmember Janani Ramachandran’s chief of staff.

Love said her team expects to receive an update on its status by Aug. 30. The case management conference is set for Sept. 22.

“I will not let my neighbors in Oakland be disenfranchised,” she wrote in a post on social media earlier this week.