Background
Alisa Florio sought a writ of mandamus requiring the Sandusky County Board of Elections to count, tally, or record only votes cast for Kimberly J. Ontko in the November 3, 2026 election for Sandusky County Common Pleas Court judge. Florio contended that Ontko’s opponent, incumbent Judge Jon Marshal Ickes, was ineligible because the Ohio Supreme Court had suspended him from law practice and judicial office for two years following disciplinary proceedings.
Ontko had previously challenged Ickes’s candidacy, but the board denied her protest as untimely. The Supreme Court of Ohio then denied Ontko’s requested election relief, holding that there was no proper statutory protest that could support removing Ickes from the ballot. Florio filed this action four days later. The board asserted, among other defenses, laches and res judicata.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed the action for want of jurisdiction. Although Florio framed her request as one to compel the board to count only Ontko’s votes, the court held that the substance of the requested relief was an order forbidding the board from counting votes cast for Ickes.
That makes the claim one for declaratory and prohibitory injunctive relief, not mandamus. The court’s original mandamus jurisdiction does not extend to claims that seek to prevent official action. The court also rejected Florio’s reliance on State ex rel. Williamson v. Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, explaining that Williamson enforced an earlier writ striking a candidate from the ballot after a federal temporary restraining order had prevented that writ from taking effect. No comparable preexisting removal writ existed here. The court therefore did not reach laches or res judicata and denied Florio leave to submit rebuttal evidence on res judicata.
Key Takeaways
- A party cannot invoke mandamus jurisdiction merely by describing prohibitory relief as an affirmative command.
- A request to count votes for only one candidate is, in substance, a request not to count votes for the other candidate when both remain on the ballot.
- Williamson is limited to its unusual context: enforcing an earlier writ that had already ordered an ineligible candidate removed from the ballot.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the Ohio Supreme Court’s jurisdictional line between mandamus, which compels a legal duty, and a prohibitory injunction, which prevents official action. Election litigants must establish a proper vehicle for ballot-removal or vote-counting challenges rather than recast injunction claims as mandamus.
It also confirms that a candidate’s ballot status matters: absent a prior writ removing the candidate from the ballot, a request to disregard that candidate’s votes will ordinarily be treated as prohibited injunctive relief in an original mandamus action.