Democratic Ohio Secretary of State candidate fined $500 over minor campaign-finance violations

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Democratic councilwoman from suburban Cincinnati who’s running for Ohio secretary of state has been found to have committed three minor campaign-finance violations, two related to her temporarily having an improper name for her state campaign committee.

The Ohio Elections Commission on Thursday fined Chelsea Clark $500, in part for having an improper committee name, and then in a related issue, having an improper disclosure in a campaign ad.

When Clark initially formed her state campaign committee on July 6, 2021, she called it “Chelsea for Ohio.” Ohio law requires candidates to include their last name in their campaign committees. “Chelsea for Ohio” then appeared in one of Clark’s campaign videos, even after she changed her name to “Chelsea Clark for Ohio” on July 7, 2021.

The commission also dinged Clark for accepting a $2,500 check from a donor dated July 1, 2021, before her campaign committee had been officially formed.

Clark is challenging Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose in November’s election.

Phil Richter, director of the Ohio Elections Commission, said a factor in setting the $500 fine was that Clark had been fined $250 previously by the commission for filing late campaign-finance reports for her local campaign committee in Forest Park in suburban Cincinnati.

A lawyer for Clark said the violations were unintentional mistakes that were quickly corrected.

The elections commission made its finding in response to a complaint…