COLORADO SPRINGS — A seat on District 49's school board is now vacant after Ivy Liu moved from one region of the district to another and tried to run for re-election.
Liu has represented D49's director district four for two years. But this summer she moved into director district 5.
The district policy says, “School board directors are required to be a resident in the director district they represent.”
Liu says she knew she would lose her seat when she moved. “I knew that was the consequence for me moving, but I wanted to cover all my bases”
Because of redistricting, she says she had to move because she wanted to run for reelection in District 5.
“The people in the district are trying to hang me on I did not move soon enough,” explains Liu.
So she reached out to the Secretary of State's Office to see how long she had to live in Director District Five before running for election.
Liu say they sent her this email which says, “I have based this conclusion on the fact that the statute does not set a time limit of any kind on how long the candidate must have been at the residence to qualify."
"The status says you do not have to move until the election," according to Liu.
According to the district, ”Ms. Liu was not disqualified from running in Director District 5, rather she is not qualified because she did not submit a valid candidate petition and therefore will not be on the ballot for November's election.”
Candidates are required to get the 50 signatures. The district says Liu only had 46 valid signatures. She claims to have proof of 50 or more signatures.
She says she cross-referenced these 54 signatures with the registrar's voter roll from the County Clerk's Office.
District 49 says, “Candidates may do a preliminary verification, but the DOE has access to state voter registration data and is the only person authorized to make a final determination. To provide a 'margin of safety' for possible invalidation, candidates often submit between 75 and 100 signatures. Ms. Liu submitted 60, knowing that some of them were invalid”
Liu wants to know what signatures are invalid. "They would not tell me which ones were bad and why, I want to know”
Lui has hired an attorney and says she is still trying to run for election. The district says she will not be on the ballot for November's election.
There are 3 out of the 5 school board seats open for reelection this election
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