Thank you for the suggestion. I guess I am curious about this because I believe it should not be so difficult to figure out and I would not expect to need a consult with the County Clerk to determine the number.

Also your thought that, “It does not matter where you live, or where you get your signatures from within the AAPS district– any municipality is fine, as long as the total number of signatures is correct, and the addresses of all signers are within the municipality with which you label the petition.” …does not seem to jive with Ms. Williams.

[Ms.] Williams suggested that one reason this happens is because the petitions are specific to a municipality. For example, she said, “People who live in Scio Township can’t sign for the city of Ann Arbor.”

One would think that such basic aspects of this process would be clearly written down and available to all. Ms. Williams is the AAPS election liaison. If her quote is accurate there is much more to this.

I live in the part of Scio within the AAPS district. I think the voting precinct boundaries are drawn to match the AAPS boundary, so everyone who votes in my precinct has the A2 school board ballot, whereas people a couple precincts to the northwest are all in Dexter Schools. Each precinct has a complete list of addresses (or just registered voter addresses?) to compare against.

Form the article:

“Patalan asked how many signatures are required on the petition, and Williams said about 40. (According to the Washtenaw County Clerk Elections website, the formula for determining the number of signatures needed on a nominating petition is based in part on population; it recommends the candidates check the 2000 U.S. Census numbers.)”

“Williams suggested that one reason this happens is because the petitions are specific to a municipality. For example, she said, “People who live in Scio Township can’t sign for the city of Ann Arbor.” Margolis added that the AAPS district draws from eight municipalities.”

From the AAPS website:

“The Ann Arbor Public School District serves the City of Ann Arbor and parts of eight surrounding townships covering 125 square miles.”

As best as I can tell reading a map of the AAPS district, which does not have municipal boundaries, the municipalities served are AA City, AA Twp and Barton Hills in their entirety. The school district also serves portions, but not all of, Lodi, Northfield, Pittsfield, Scio, Superior, Webster and Ypsilanti townships. (This is a total of 10 jurisdictions so I must have one too many but I am not sure which it is.) Nevertheless, since the majority of the jurisdictions are not wholly in the AAPS district how does one work with Census numbers? I looked at the Petition Signature Requirement Chart which makes reference to seeing notes that follow the chart for school board positions, but here are no notes following the chart. I also looked at the census population info on that website and found the breakdown only to the township level. So I am confused as to how one calculates how many signatures are required?

I am also confused about the how the municipalities come into play. The seats are not based on wards or portions of the AAPS district, I think, so does it depend on where you live? If I lived in Pittsfield then I can only get signatures from Pittsfield? I must be missing something; it cannot be this ambiguous. Can it?