With Buffalo School Board elections scheduled for May 1, only a few weeks away, we thought it would be a good idea to publish a list of candidates in the interest of keeping voters informed.

What follows is an unofficial list representing the candidates who turned in their paperwork by the April 3 deadline:

■ Central District

Edward M. Daniels

Mary Ruth Kapsiak

Joyce E. Nixon

Jayne K. Rand

■ East District

Vivian O. Evans

Gregory B. Olma

■ Ferry District

Pamela D. Cahill

■ North District

Catherine Nugent Panepinto

■ Park District

Kevin J. Becker

Louis J. Petrucci

Gerald T. Quinn

■ West District

Clarissa Acosta

Ralph R. Hernandez

These candidates’s petitions are still subject to challenges, which can arrive at the Erie County Board of Elections as late as April 19, provided they are postmarked by April 16. That would leave seven business days before the actual election. At which point, workers at the Board of Elections would begin the process of verifying signatures. The printing department is already working to get as many forms ready as possible in advance, so that they can plug in the official candidates’ names before the polls open on Tuesday morning.

A spokesperson at the Erie County Board of Elections explained that the board is not responsible for setting deadlines that make it virtually impossible to learn anything about the candidates before stepping into the voting booth—that these decisions are made in Albany.

Lee Daghlian, a spokesperson for the State Board of Elections in Albany, says this: “When they said the state, they didn’t mean the state board. The school districts themselves do all of the work of getting names on the ballot and so forth. Unless they have made a deal with the county board to run the elections for them.”

Jay O’Conner, an assistant at the State Education Department in Albany, explains that Buffalo’s school board elections are different from a lot of school districts in the state in that they “follow many of the election law rules rather than education law.” Why Buffalo’s are the way they are was not something he could answer.

A spokesperson from Buffalo Public Schools then told Artvoice that they receive the official dates from the Erie County Board of Elections.

Finally, Erie County Board of Elections Commissioner Dennis Ward came to the rescue to explain that Buffalo’s School Board elections “are unique in that the outline of all the requirements are in the education law, not in the election law.” Most suburban school districts conduct their elections under the authority of the school system, not the board of elections. So, if there are challenges, they fall under the jurisdiction of the school system.

Why the short period of time between the submission of signatures and the actual election? It appears that’s just the way it’s always been. Also unique to the Buffalo school board elections are the Byzantine petitions employed—straight out of the early 1970s.

“Time stood still for the Buffalo School Board elections,” Ward says. “Nobody ever changed the education law section…nobody thought to go change that section. And nobody pushed for it. So what you have is a very unusual petition nowadays that harkens back more to 30 years ago…among other things, you have to have your election district and the ward that you live in in the city of Buffalo next to the name of the signer.”

Not things that are considered “top of mind” to most city residents.

Still, Ward is confident that everything will be in place come Tuesday, May 1. Barring any last-minute court orders, the correct candidates will be printed on the voting strips at the 150 voting locations throughout the city. He says that should such a court order come to pass, election workers will be out in the pre-dawn hours everywhere in the city to manually blank out or re-insert any candidates affected by such a court decision.

Early election favorites appear to be Pamela D. Cahill in the Ferry District and Catherine Nugent-Panepinto in the North District—both of whom appear to be running unopposed for their respective board seats.