WARREN — The Trumbull County Board of Elections upheld its decision to not certify Tim Gilliland as a candidate for Hubbard Township trustee.

The board previously declined to certify Gilliland for two reasons. At a Friday hearing, the board chose to overturn its decision on one of those reasons, but not for the other.

At its Aug. 14 meeting, the board didn’t certify Gilliland because he signed and dated the statement of candidacy on his petitions after signatures were collected, which is considered a fatal flaw under state election law.

But at Friday’s hearing, Gilliland swore under oath that he signed the petitions before circulating them and didn’t date them until later. The board took that as a valid protest and overturned its decision to invalidate Gilliland’s candidacy because of that issue.

Gilliland wrote in an appeal letter before the hearing that “not only was my signature on the statement of candidacy before any signatures were affixed, but also my complete statement was filled out on the PDF form and printed from the printer and not handwritten. The date was simply affixed while going through the checklist when I turned in my petition and I put that date on it so as to not misrepresent myself and backdate it.”

While the board discussed another issue with Gilliland’s petitions on Aug. 14, it only declined to certify him to the Nov. 4 ballot for the lone issue at that meeting.

But on Aug. 25, three days after Gilliland requested reconsideration of his candidacy, the board voted to not certify him for a second reason: he submitted one front page of a petition with his statement of candidacy on it and three back pages of signatures. Each petition submitted must have a front page with a statement of candidacy and a back page under state election law.

The board voted Friday to not put Gilliland’s name on the ballot because of that issue.

The elections board previously certified three candidates for the township’s two trustee positions on the Nov. 4 ballot.

They are incumbent Monica J. Baker, and challengers Eric Lamb and Russell Speerbrecher.