The Oregon State Elections Division will not pursue an investigation into alleged elections law violations by the group trying to recall Coos County Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean.

Coos Bay resident Kathy Hosack sent a complaint to state elections Wednesday alleging Citizens for Fair and Open Government’s chief petitioner Larry Van Elsberg had left an unattended recall signature sheet in a North Bend cigarette store.

Oregon election law requires petitioners to witness each signature and sign the sheet testifying they were present as each person signed the document. Hosack said the procedure wasn’t followed on signature sheets at Nex-Dor and More, located on Public Square Court in North Bend. She took photographs of a petition on the front counter in the store and sent them to state elections.

“We don’t have any evidence of the violation,” said Norma Buckno, a compliance specialist with the elections office.

State officials sent Hosack a letter Friday explaining the sheets in Hosack’s photographs were blank and therefore not proof of a violation. Furthermore, Grace Trupt, the owner of the store, said she is a campaign volunteer and asked Van Elsberg to leave the petition with her.

Hosack tells a different story. She said people working in the store told her and her friend on two occasions on March 2 and March 13 they didn’t know what the petition was for and Van Elsberg asked if he could leave it in the store.

“She was not a volunteer,” Hosack said of Trupt.

Van Elsberg said Trupt approached him about taking a petition and he told her what state law requires of petitioners.

“Everybody has been instructed they are to witness the signatures,” he said.

Coos County Elections officials are in a 10-day process of verifying the more than 5,300 signature petitioners turned in March 17. The group needs 3,773 valid signatures to bring the recall to a vote.