CLAREMORE, Okla. -- The State Auditor's Office says the election board found that the petition created to audit the city did not have enough valid signatures.
The heat isn't stopping Shelly Taylor from sitting on her porch.
“The state auditor is already willing to prepare a second petition," she said.
986 signatures were all Taylor needed.
“We did get well above that it in actual signatures but only 837 are valid," Taylor said.
The others deemed not valid because they were not registered, voters. So just 149 short to ask the state auditor to look at the city's books from July 1st, 2013 to June 20th, 2017.
"The city is held accountable for everywhere that our money is going," Taylor said.
The state auditor's office says now Taylor has to start from scratch. So Taylor is waiting for the new petition and will have 30 days to get another 986 signatures.
“The people in the community did step forward and do their part of getting their signatures on the paper," Taylor said. "We should need to do our part of making sure we get those valid signatures.”
The city says they weren't made aware the petition failed but understands it's anyone's right to start the process all over.
The state auditor says if the next petition passes with flying colors, the city audit could take six months and if they find anything that violates the law the district attorney will determine if charges should be filed.
But Shelly Taylor is confident she'll get the answers she's looking for.
“If you don’t have anything to hide you shouldn’t have an issue talking to people," she said.
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