Five proposals to amend the City Charter of Tahlequah, Okla., were nullified last year as a result of the city’s failure to publish the city ballot in an official newspaper, according to the Tahlequah Daily Press.

The mistake was discovered prior to the Nov. 3 election when a local resident contacted the Daily Press and alerted the paper to the missing ballots. The City Council later voted to keep the questions on the ballot to survey voters about the issues they raise.

Oklahoma state law requires proposed charter amendments to be published in an official newspaper for three consecutive weeks prior to the election. Tahlequah Mayor Sue Catron told the Daily Press that the City Charter is even stricter, requiring publication of the proposal for four consecutive weeks.

The amendments would have expanded the size of the council, allowed the mayor to vote on council issues, required council approval of appointments of the street commissioner and city treasurer, and created a recall mechanism for elected city officials.

About a month after the election, a district judge in Oklahoma invalidated the Norman City Council’s decision to deduct $865,000 from the local police department budget as a result of a faulty meeting notice. The judge ruled the city “willfully” violated the state’s Open Meetings Act when it “deceptively worded or materially obscured the stated purpose of the meeting,” reported the Norman Transcript.

Under Oklahoma law, meeting notices are not required to be published in a newspaper.

The city plans to appeal the decision, arguing that the hundreds of protesters who attended the June 16 meeting and demanded the council defund the police are evidence that the notice was sufficient.