With the upcoming election for the Levelland City Council being slated for May 6, 2023, potential candidates were encouraged to fill out an application for a place on the ballot, the deadline for which was February 17, 2023.
According to a press release sent by the City of Levelland, two individuals filled out an application for a place on the ballot for District B.
After a careful review of the candidate addresses submitted in the applications, it was determined that one of the applicants, Velvet Cardona, actually lives in an adjacent district and not District B.
The release states, as a qualification for office, pursuant to Article V, Sec. III of the Levelland City Charter, a person seeking election to a councilmember position in a particular district is required to have resided within that district for at least six months prior to the first day an application for a place on the ballot can be filed.
This qualification is in addition to other qualifications outlined in the City Charter and state law.
Due to the fact that, Ms. Cardona does not live in District B, Ms. Cardona does not meet the qualifications to hold that office and does not qualify to be on the ballot for District B.
Council members are elected for a two-year term, which means voters have an election for City Council in their council district every other year.
Districts A and C elections are held in even numbered years and Districts B and D are held in odd numbered years.
The Hockley County Election’s Office provided a statement on the Levelland City Council candidate being found unable to run for the applied district.
As part of routine preparation for the election, an error in district assignment was found in our computer and the error is in the process of being fixed by the Secretary of State.
That error did not effect the candidate and after physically verifying the property, it was determined that the candidate lived in District A, not B. The error also affected several other addresses in west Levelland and those were fixed as well.
The boundary set has not been changed in over 10 years and the error in the system happened prior to 2015.