The Hamilton County Election Commission has rejected a petition by a coalition of activist organizations after the groups came up short on collecting enough valid signatures to put legislation for a new Chattanooga police oversight board on the March 2021 ballot.
The coalition, called Community Control Now, got the green light to collect signatures in October, with a goal of at least 4,791 by Dec. 2. That number is based on a percentage of those who voted in the last Chattanooga mayoral election.
The group was able to gather 6,089 signatures, according to Kristi Berry, executive assistant to the administrator of elections. Of those, 1,596 were rejected after an audit of the initial count, a recount and another audit of the signatures.
The rejected signatures were deemed invalid for a variety of reasons: Some people were not registered voters or were not registered in the city of Chattanooga or had recently moved to a different voting district. And at least 48 were duplicate signatures.
Coalition members gathered in a “Caravan to Demand a Recount” outside the election commission Tuesday morning ahead of the meeting during which commissioners officially rejected the petition.