Request By:
Mr. Frankie Scott Hager
City Attorney
City of Owensboro
City Hall
Owensboro, Kentucky 42301
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of February 4 in which you relate that a number of citizens of the city are interested in initiating an election on the question of a bond issue for a civic center to be placed on the coming November ballot. The initiative statute, namely KRS 89.610, requires a petition signed by 25% of the total number of votes cast for both candidates for mayor in the last preceding regular election. It so happens that in the last mayor's election, the candidate for mayor was unopposed; therefore, his name alone was on the ballot. The question is thus raised as to whether or not a petition signed by 25% of the total number of votes cast for the unopposed mayor at the last November election would be in compliance with the provisions of KRS 89.610.
Our response to your question would be in the affirmative. KRS 89.610 requires the petition to be signed by a number of voters equal to 25% of the total number of votes cast for both candidates for mayor in the preceding regular election for mayor. The fact that there was only one candidate for this office is, in our opinion, of no legal significance in determining the election upon which the 25% is to be based. We think the reference to counting votes cast for both candidates was simply inserted by the legislature to be sure that the total votes cast for the office is used rather than the votes cast for the winning candidate.
As you know, elections under the city commission-manager form of government are peculiar in that a special city primary is required at which time there is a maximum of two (2) candidates nominated, both of whom are to have their names placed on the November ballot for a run-off election. The fact that in any given primary only one (1) candidate has filed and, therefore, only one (1) is nominated to have his name on the November ballot, simply means with respect to a referendum petition that only the total votes cast for this candidate is to be used in determining the 25% voter requirement. To hold that one must go back to a regular election at which there were two (2) nominees for the office of mayor would, we believe, reach an impractical and unreasonable interpretation of the statute.