The Lincoln County Journal recently completed an investigation that revealed an Elsberry alderman, Danielle Rockwell, is by law, ineligible to serve due to back taxes.

After publishing the story, with confirmation from the Secretary of State’s Office that she can’t in fact serve, the response has been mixed.

Based on an informal survey of social media comments, half of the town doesn’t care and believes Rockwell is a victim of a hit-job conducted by the newspaper and a few angry malcontents. The other half believes a law was broken and there should be consequences for that.

Not surprisingly, half the town is right.

From my direct interactions with Rockwell and observing her in an official capacity at a handful of Elsberry meetings, coupled with many of those previously mentioned comments, it’s apparent she’s a very nice and well-liked woman. It’s probably part of the reason she’s been elected three times to serve.

And I understand that’s where a great deal of the angst stems. If she was combative, rude and condescending like other aldermen I won’t name, I think the public sentiment would be significantly different.

But this isn’t about Danielle Rockwell. It’s about a very flawed electoral system that has zero guarantees regarding the candidates appearing on the ballot.

We are in the midst of expanding our investigation throughout Missouri and have already identified 5 candidates elected in the April 8 election who aren’t qualified to serve…at least according to the standards established by state law.

And that’s just covering six small-to-mid-sized counties, or about five percent of the state population. I can’t do much math, but I can extrapolate those numbers which would indicate the potential of more than 100 unqualified candidates elected just in the April 8 election.

In an environment where election integrity has never been more important, that number is unacceptable.

Now, there’s an argument that paying your taxes late isn’t that big of a deal. Lots of people do it. As long as they get paid, no harm no foul.

That’s fair and maybe it’s a good reason to change the law. But that hasn’t happened yet.

But this isn’t just about unpaid taxes. It’s about candidates who don’t meet the criteria for election, and that goes well beyond taxes.

There are essentially four boxes that must be checked before you can be elected: a minimum age, residency requirements, current taxes and no felony convictions.

Now while you may not think it’s a big deal if an alderman hasn’t paid her taxes, I’m guessing you probably would think it was a big deal if a registered sex offender was elected to your local school board.

Don’t think it could happen? I would ask, why not? Because there are the same number of people checking the criminal history of school board or aldermen or mayoral candidates as there are people checking back taxes: zero.

No one checks candidates on anything. It’s entirely based essentially on the honor code. Sure, the candidate has to sign an affidavit stating they meet the qualifications, but no one checks to make sure they aren’t lying or simply mistaken.

This is absolutely astounding. Why would the state have requirements in place and then not empower anyone to enforce them?

Mike Krueger, who is the appointed election supervisor for Lincoln County, could be aware a candidate is a violent felon who hasn’t paid his taxes in 43 years, but he has no ability to remove that individual from the ballot. He just has to certify the ballot knowing full well some on it aren’t legally qualified to serve.

The city clerk who accepted the affidavit and even the Secretary of State are equally powerless.

That’s a problem. It’s a problem for Elsberry, and it’s going to be a problem for several other communities across the state with similar unqualified candidates.

The end result will be at best an alderman has to resign and the mayor, instead of the electorate, will choose who represents that ward. At worst, the alderman will dig in his or her heels and try to fight the state, refusing to step down. That’s when the legal fees start, which is never good for local taxpayers.

And the worst part is 95 percent of these problems could be easily avoided with just the proverbial ounce of prevention. Had Rockwell received notice she wasn’t qualified to serve because someone checked, I’m certain she would have taken care of it…as most would.

But that doesn’t happen so instead, she gets the difficult choice of either resigning voluntarily or engaging in a legal fight to keep her seat and potentially being removed by court order. Either way, the citizens become a little more disenfranchised with their representation.

Without a verification process, the system is essentially entrapping candidates. It’s set up so they can fail.

And no one wins when that happens.

Gregory Orear is a Senior Editor for Cherry Road Media and the General Manager/Editor of the Lincoln County Journal, Elsberry Democrat and Troy Free Press. He can be contacted at gorear@cherryroad.com.