O’connell v. Director of Elections

This action tests whether Judge PETER D. O’CONNELL, a judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals whose six-year term of office expires on January 1, 2019, may run as an incumbent for a Court of Appeals position with a term commencing on January 1, 2017. Judge MICHAEL F. GADOLA’s name will appear on the November 2016 ballot as the incumbent running for this seat. Judge O’CONNELL posits that he, too, is “an incumbent judge of the Court of Appeals.” He asserts that this status entitles him to enjoy two privileges of incumbency: access to the ballot by filing an affidavit of candidacy, rather than…