A candidate for Dearborn mayor whose petitions were ruled invalid has filed a grievance with the elections commission requesting reconsideration in the matter.

The Dearborn Clerk’s office ruled last week that some of the signatures on Ziad Abdulhamid Abdulmalik’s petition were invalid, which automatically made him ineligible to run for Dearborn mayor. He is now asking that the decision be reconsidered.

The City Clerk’s office will meet with election commission officials next week to discuss a variety of matters, including the request by Abdulmalik. According to the clerk’s office, a number of the signatures on Abdulmalik’s petition did not match the signatures the clerk’s office keeps on file of all registered voters in Dearborn.

The Clerk’s office took similar action with Doug Thomas, who submitted petitions for both city council and mayor. His petition for council was deemed valid but his mayoral one was thrown out because a number of the signatures were from people who are not registered voters in Dearborn, which is a requirement. Apparently either Thomas or his supporters overlooked that tiny detail as a number of the signatures on his mayoral petition were from Dearborn Heights residents.

Of course, the drama of not having the required amount of signatures to run for mayor could have been avoided by both Thomas and Abdulmalik. Had the candidates turned in their petitions ahead of the deadline, they would have had time to actually go back out and get the proper signatures from registered Dearborn voters to make their petitions valid before the time ran out.  

As it stands now, Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., will face just one challenger, Michael J. Prus, in the November general election.