FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) - A Ferguson resident hopes his lawsuit resurrects a recall petition effort meant to oust Ferguson's mayor from office.
The St. Louis County Board of Election Commissioners announced last week that a group trying to remove James Knowles III was 27 signatures shy of the 1,814 needed to force a recall election. It was the second time since May that the recall petitions fell short.
But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/1UhbQSv) reports that in the lawsuit filed Wednesday against the election board and Ferguson's city clerk, Robert Hudgins says more than 28 of the signatures that the election board rejected last week are valid.
The suit asks for a judge to determine the signatures valid and to order Ferguson City Clerk Megan Asikainen to initiate a recall election.
A Ferguson spokesman declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Tony Rice, a leader of the Ground Level Support group that gathered the signatures, said it appeared some signatures were wrongly rejected because they were printed, not written in cursive. On Thursday, Rice displayed some petitions where signers printed their names in a jagged script, as if their hands were shaking at the time they signed.
"This is an elderly population," Rice said. "People have strokes."
Knowles, who's white, was criticized for comments he made after last August's shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black and unarmed, by white police officer Darren Wilson.
Knowles has said he has no plans to step down.