State disqualifies 2 candidates running for Milwaukee County Executive

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) have removed two candidates running for Milwaukee County Executive from the ballot because of an issue with their nomination papers.

The two candidates removed from the ballot are Glendale Mayor Bryan Kennedy and Jim Sullivan, the head of Milwaukee County’s Child Support services.

Tuesday, WEC announced Kennedy and Sullivan violated state law by using people to collect their signatures that had already collected signatures for another candidate running for county executive.

This invalidated some of their signatures, leaving the candidates with less than two thousand signatures required to be on the ballot.

This was brought to the attention of County Board Chairman Theo Lipscomb who is also running for County Executive.

He filed a complaint on the local and state level.

“Campaigning for local office really should be a grassroots endeavor,” Lipscomb said. “The use of paid circulators, the use of campaign consultants, and big money sometimes doesn’t work out for you.”

Sullivan provided CBS 58 this statement:

Kennedy did not respond to our request for comment.