Fight over ballot petitions begins

The fight to get on the ballot is underway in Queens. Eagle file photo by Ryan Schwach

By Ryan Schwach

For weeks, dozens of candidates in Queens have hit the streets to ask voters not for their support, cash or vote – but for their name, address and signature.

The tedious process of collecting ballot petition signatures, which came to an end earlier this month, in some ways marks the first real test for any candidate running for office in New York City. Candidates with deep pockets, an inspired group of volunteers or support of their local party organization should pass the test with flying colors, collecting three to four times as many signatures as the law requires. Candidates without such support likely struggled to hit the signature threshold.

What’s left after the collection process is a group of candidates that will likely appear on the ballot come election day – as long as they survive the legal challenges to their petitions that have expectedly come to most candidates.

Campaigns had until Monday at midnight to file their specific objections to their competitors' petitions, all in the hopes of getting them knocked off the ballot. This week, the Board of Elections will begin to parse through the accusations and begin to whittle down the field of candidates running for elected office until the city is left with a final ballot at the end of the month.

Over 200 objections were filed against candidates running for office in the World’s Borough.

In Queens, a majority of the candidates running in one of the three open City Council seats told the Eagle that they collected more than enough signatures to withstand any objections to their petitions. Others have just squeaked by.

And while the entire process of collecting signatures and then defending them before the BOE – or sometimes in court – has been described as a tiresome process, even its critics say it has value.

“It is a necessary and tedious task,” long-time election lawyer Jerry Goldfeder said. “When a candidate is personally involved it is a good way of meeting voters.”

However, the veteran counselor isn’t exactly a fan of petitioning.

When the Eagle asked him what voters should glean from candidates petitioning numbers, he gave as straightforward an answer as one could give.

“Nothing,” he said in a text message.

Goldfeder argued that paid petitioners, rather than volunteers, have watered down the actual merits of the process, and that the idea of needing signatures to appear on a ballot is arcane at best.

“The stated rationale for petitioning has historically been to show community support so as to not clog the ballot with too many candidates,” Goldfeder wrote in a recent op-ed. “With the advent of paid petitioners and the liberalization of petition requirements, this reasoning rings hollow. Its major function these days is to give political adversaries the opportunity to knock them off the ballot in time-consuming and costly litigation.”

The litigations Goldfeder is speaking of – called objections – are often as numerous as the signatures themselves, and involve one candidate taking legal issue with an opponent’s petitions in an attempt to invalidate their candidacy.

The objections are often centered on mundane and seemingly innocuous mistakes – for instance, abbreviating street as “St.” or Avenue as “Ave.”

“Voters shouldn’t be deprived of voting for candidates because of arcane, hypertechnical mistakes,” Goldfeder told the Eagle. “Opponents would rather knock off competitors than run a race.”

In Queens, at least 220 objections were filed against candidates with the Board of Elections. Most were filed against those running for the lowest-level position on the ballot – county party committee members.

Republican John David Rinaldi, a perennial candidate who's been known to harass his opponents on the campaign trail, filed 69 different objections against Queens and citywide Republican candidates, including his primary opponent in Queens’ City Council District 29.

But petitioning remains a quintessential part of the city’s electoral process.

In the World’s Borough, 27 candidates have filed petitions to run for City Council.

Council candidates need a minimum 450 to 900 petition signatures from active voters who are members of the candidate’s party in order to get their name on the ballot. Hitting that number is a point of pride and accomplishment for candidates.

However, candidates often aim for more than three times that number – around 2,000 – to ensure that objections and invalidations don’t bring them beneath the threshold.

The Eagle asked every candidate running for Council in Queens how many signatures they collected. Ten responded.

Most of the candidates running in Southeast Queens’ District 28, which is currently represented by term-limited Council speaker and mayoral candidate Adrienne Adams, secured enough signatures to likely withstand a bevy of challenges.

District 28 candidate Japneet Singh reported bringing in around 3,500 signatures, well over the needed amount. As for his “Great 28” opponents, Tyrell Hankerson received 2,300, Romeo Hitlall reported 1,400 and former office holder Ruben Wills turned in 1,900 signatures.

The only other candidate in that race, Latoya LeGrand, did not respond to the Eagle’s request for comment.

The Eagle reported on Monday that a petition page featuring 15 signatures for Wills and a trio of other candidates appeared to have several allegedly fraudulent signatures. Voters in the South Jamaica Houses told the Eagle that they didn’t sign the sheet, despite their name, signature and address appearing on it. LeGrand’s name was listed on her opponent’s questionable petition sheet. Wills has not been accused of petition fraud.

In one of Queens’ other closely watched open races, District 21 candidates Shanel Thomas-Henry and Hiram Monserrate both filed over 2,000 signatures.

Erycka Montoya, a staffer for Council Speaker Adams, reported 1,530 signatures.

Other D21 candidates Yanna Henriquez, Sandro Navarro and David Aiken did not respond to the Eagle’s requests for petitioning numbers.

Regardless of the tedious, arguably archaic process that is petitioning, elected officials and candidates alike often speak highly of it.

For new candidates, it is an introduction to the technical, bureaucratic process of getting elected. It’s also another way to meet voters and drum up support for a candidate’s campaign.

“It was really informative and it's humbling, because you get the doors slammed in your face,” said Paul Pogozelski, who is running as a Democrat to replace term-limited Bob Holden in Western Queens.

Pogozelski, who turned in around 1,100 signatures for his first attempt at local office, said petitioning helped him learn about the issues voters felt were important.

“That was the best thing that actually happened,” he said. “It was eye-opening.”

Pogozelski went door-to-door to collect the signatures rather than collecting them on busy corners, as others elect to do. He enlisted volunteers with connections to the roller hockey league he founded and currently runs in Middle Village.

“They would do a couple blocks around their house, but that actually gave us a really good base,” he said. “We went to the approach of actually doing it at the doors, because I just felt like it's a better connection.”

Pogozelski’s Democratic primary challenger Phil Wong, who works in Holden’s office, told the Eagle he received 1,055 signatures. Neither Michael Lopez nor Dermot Smyth, both Democrats who are also running for the seat, responded to the Eagle’s petition numbers request.

The only other candidate who responded to the Eagle’s request for petitioning numbers was Alexander Caruso, a Democrat who is running with the Working Families Party endorsement for District 19. He said he was just above the threshold with 973 petitions filed.

His primary opponents, Youn Chung and Benjamin Chou, did not respond to requests for their numbers.

For veteran incumbents, petitioning may be something of a formality, but for them too, it is a chance to gauge the energy behind their campaign and return to boots-on-the-ground politics.

Jackson Heights Councilmember Shekar Krishnan is running for a third time this year, and is one of three Queens incumbents with a registered primary opponent.

As a well-known councilmember with a political party behind him, Krishnan likely won’t have any issues getting on the ballot. Still, he said he enjoys hitting the streets with the green petitioning sheets.

“I get energized by it, I feed off of it,” he said. “I just feel like it's a great opportunity to be out there to talk to neighbors, to talk to voters about the work that we're doing, hear from them and talk about the work and our vision for moving forward.”

If anything, Krishnan wishes the process started a little closer to the June primary, when the weather is a little warmer.

“It's cold outside,” he said. “But I have found every time I've done it, I've come away feeling energized and inspired to keep going.”

The final results of petitioning won’t be known until the end of April, when all objections will have been filed and argued either before the BOE or in court.

Whenever challenges to petitions are made to the BOE, the agency assigns a team of bipartisan clerks to review the claims. The clerks then issue a report, which will be reviewed and voted on by the BOE during a hearing, where both the campaign that challenged the petition and the campaign that is defending the petition can raise exceptions to the report.

Any candidate alleging that a petition has fraudulent signatures would be required to file a “petition to invalidate” in court. Campaigns have until April 17 to file their claims in court.

The Board of Elections will certify the primary ballot on April 28.