Cincinnati City Council candidate Brian Garry wasn't endorsed by the Cincinnati Democratic Committee.
But his campaign – unbeknownst to him he says – drew up a fake Democratic party slate card with Garry's name on it and passed them out on election day.
A slate card lists candidates endorsed by a particular group; the Democrats have an official slate of Cincinnati City Council candidates, but Garry was not one of those endorsed.
The Democratic endorsement is considered the Holy Grail of endorsements for Cincinnati politics, particularly as the city has trended more Democratic.
In 2017, six of the party's nine endorsed candidates won election and it raised the profile of the three who didn't win.
Democrats – on the real slate and off – were mad and began calling Garry out on Twitter. That prompted Garry, a longtime political activist and Democrat, to post an apology on Twitter and promise to stop distributing them. The polls had been open eight and half hours at that point and it is unclear how many had been passed out.
"On behalf of my campaign, I would like to apologize," Garry wrote on Twitter. "Our marketing director released this unapproved and against the wishes of our campaign. We have since stopped hanging it out and sincerely apologize for any confusion. We did not mean to contribute to any voter misinformation."
Garry told The Enquirer he personally did not put it out.
The Hamilton County Democratic Party accused Garry of lying, in a tweet of its own.
It said: "This is a lie. We have heard from several volunteers and voters at several polling locations who personally saw you hand out this slate, and offer to pay others to hand it out. It's a shame that you run on integrity and have lied to voters. We plan to file a formal complaint."
The fake slate card included only four of the actual endorsed candidates.
It was written on blue printer paper, headlined with the words "Hamilton County Democratic Slate" and said: "Vote for the full Democratic Slate!"
Democratic Party Chairwoman Gwen McFarlin told The Enquirer: "It's a cheap trick."
"This piece was paid for by Brian Garry, who clearly doesn't believe he can be successful on his own accord," McFarlin said in a statement released to the media. "We know voters are smarter than this, and we hope they will see through this attempt by Mr. Garry to misguide the voters."
Hamilton County Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou, a member of the county Board of Elections, said making a fake sample ballot can be a violation of law. "It’s serious business to lie to voters about a party endorsement. And it should be dealt with seriously," he said.
The process to file a complaint starts at the Ohio Election Commission. If the commission finds probable cause that a crime has been committed it then makes a referral for criminal charges to the local prosecutor's office.
A few hours after Garry apologized, four of his campaign staff members resigned, denouncing the fake slate cards in a latter to the media. They wrote that some staffers weren't aware of the plan, but others knew about it and advocated against it.
Last week Democrat council candidate Michelle Dillingham was the target of a series of attack mailers accusing her of being anti-police and anti-development, mailers paid for by a group called Stand with Cops. A look at the group shows it was a recently formed 501(C)(4), which doesn't have to disclose who funded the mailer.
And a national PAC paid for mailers distributed last week smearing local Sycamore Schools board of education candidate Sara Bitter.
"Failed career politician, Sara Bitter, is using our kids to climb the political ladder," the mailers read.
The mailer was funded by the American Principles Project, which is based in Arlington, Virginia. The conservative PAC raised more than $4 million in 2019-2020, according to Open Secrets, a nonprofit research and transparency organization that tracks political funds. None of the money raised that year went to federal candidates.
On its website, American Principles Project defines itself as "the only pro-family group engaging directly in campaigns" by taking a stand against "increasingly hostile progressive attacks on parents and children."
"If they want to attack parental rights, confuse young children about changing their gender, undermine the ability of parents to protect their children’s innocence, or drive a wedge between parents and children in education, then they are going to be punished at the polls," the website says.
"The group sending these hate mailers and the individuals in our district providing the funding for these efforts do not propose solutions to move our district forward," Bitter said. "Instead, they want to intimidate Sycamore parents (including current board members) that want to contribute their expertise and experience to our district. They spread falsehoods and half-truths and create wedge issues, all to tear our community apart. This is undemocratic, extreme, and unacceptable."
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