The mysterious Tea Party candidates could face legal challenges because many of the candidates appear to have filled out their affidavits saying they accepted the party nomination before the convention was held, one election expert said.

Of the 20 affidavits reviewed by Michigan Capitol Confidential, all but one was signed before the reported July 24 date of the Tea Party Convention in Saginaw.

The Affidavit of Identity and Receipt of Filing has a section that asks the filer to acknowledge by checking a box that they have "certification of party nomination and certification of acceptance."

Since candidates are nominated at the party convention, a candidate couldn't check that box until after nominated.

And there is a court ruling that found candidates ineligible to be on the ballot because of citing factually inaccurate information on affidavits.

"Based on the Court of Appeals decision, there is a question as to whether these affidavits would be found acceptable," said Peter Ellsworth, an elections expert with the Lansing law firm Dickinson Wright. "In certain cases, the court has said that is enough to disqualify the candidate."

There is a 2000 Court of Appeals of Michigan decision that found a State House of Representative candidate had to be removed from the ballot for putting false information on the Affidavit of Identity. The candidate had listed an address that was not his residence.

According to Michigan election law, a candidate must file the affidavit of candidacy with the Secretary of State within one day of being nominated at the party convention.

Secretary of State Spokeswoman Kelly Chesney said the question about the legitimacy of the affidavits couldn't be answered until the Board of Canvassers finished its inspection of the Tea Party petition signatures.

Earlier this week, a tea party activist discovered a link from the Tea Party political party to the Oakland County Democratic Party.

Traverse City's Jason Gillman, a tea party organizer, discovered that Oakland County Democratic Party "Political Director" Jason H. Bauer had notarized some of the Tea Party candidates' affidavits. Bauer is also registered with the state as a notary.

Gillman discovered the link while going through candidates' paperwork trying to find out more about the little-known Tea Party candidates.

Last year, Ron Hesselink of Rudyard Electric Service took a job paid for by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It was installing 50 lights in a fish hatchery.

Hesselink said it took two people three days to do the job which paid $11,933.

It got reported as one job "created," according to Recovery.org, the U.S. Government's reporting site for the stimulus act.

"Realistically, for six total days labor, does that create much?" Hesselink asked. "It really didn't create a job. ... If they are calling that a 'job created' for fulltime, that is real misleading."

The jobs "created" and "saved" have become a political football thrown around by the White House in its attempts to lift up its embattled stimulus plan. White House officials predicted that unemployment would be at or below 7 percent if the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were passed. Instead, national unemployment was at 9.5 percent for June of 2010.

In an analysis of the stimulus that appeared in the  Lansing State Journal, the White House now projects that the stimulus has created or saved between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs, including 102,000 in Michigan.

But what is a "created" or "saved" job? And how is it calculated?

The actual calculations are confusing. Both federal and state officials pointed to an Office of Management and Budget Sept. 15 memo when asked to explain just how FTE calculations are made.

The memo states that FTE is calculated based on aggregate hours worked so temporary or part-time labor is not overstated. However, the reporting of hours worked is done by the recipient and accepted as fact by the government.

"What we are reporting is what the recipient reported to us," said Ed Pound, spokesman for Recovery.org, the federal government site that collects and reports stimulus data. "We are hoping they reported accurately."

Beth Bingham, director of the Michigan Economic Recovery Office, said the state doesn't have a way to distinguish between a "created" or "saved" job.

"The data is not collected that way," Bingham said.

Instead, that state just goes by, "what was reported," Bingham said.

Pound  said the definition of jobs "created" and "saved" was confusing. So his organization now just goes by "jobs funded" by the stimulus. Pound acknowledges the White House still uses the "created" and "saved" terms, but said that was for political reasons.

Yet, Recovery.org still posts on its website the number of jobs "created" by each project.

For example, according to Recovery.org, the Gourdie-Fraser surveying firm in Traverse City "created" five jobs when it surveyed Saugatuck property.

According to an email from Gary Wilson of Gourdie-Fraser, that job involved five people and took 20 days. One person was brought back after being laid off to do the work..

State Representative Dave Agema, R-Kentwood, said that when most people hear jobs are created, they think it is a full-time, 12-month job.

Agema said that if three-days of work by two people was being called creating a job, it was "garbage."

"It's deceitful of the government to imply that jobs that last three days are real jobs," Agema said. "It's typical of government to be overstating the jobs created. You can not trust the government with the numbers they give us. The stimulus did not and does not work as they have tried to get us to believe."