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\u201cThey\u2019re trying to circumvent the democratic process so that the voters don\u2019t have a choice, so that their will cannot be expressed on election day,\u201d Amoriell said. \u201cThe courts and the board of elections have clearly indicated that the will of the people is more important and is superior to the hopes and ideas of the Democratic establishment.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A review of the ballot challenge by the state Board of Elections found Amoriell\u2019s petition contained 489 invalid signatures. But the remaining 1,527 signatures were cleared, well more than the 1,250-signature threshold needed for Amoriell to appear on the ballot.<\/p>\n
Gendebien campaign responded by saying there were genuine reasons to question some of Amoriell\u2019s signatures.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Mr. Amoriell\u2019s petitions are all valid and he did not submit fraudulent signatures, then he has absolutely nothing to worry about,\u201d the campaign wrote in a statement. \u201cThis challenge is happening because his petitions gave voters legitimate cause to bring it. North Country voters deserve a fair democratic process that ensures their voices \u2014 and only their voices \u2014 are heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t the only race this election season with a ballot challenge. Over the past month, there have been dozens of lawsuits filed against candidates for both state and federal office in New York over objections to a candidate\u2019s validity. The civil actions have targeted Democrats and Republicans alike from all corners of the state.<\/p>\n
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‘Something that\u2019s played out regularly’<\/p>\n
There have been objections filed against 17 congressional candidates and 39 candidates in state elections, according to the state board of elections. Those numbers don\u2019t include candidates from the New York City area, where objections are filed with the city’s Board of Elections instead of to the state board. The Times Union found at least 100 lawsuits related to ballot objections filed in State Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey Wice, a professor at New York Law School who specializes in Election Law, said the use of objection challenges against opponents is a fairly common occurrence in New York election cycles.<\/p>\n
\u201cCandidates will try to knock challengers off the ballot so as to make their own chances better, depending on who they\u2019re trying to eliminate,\u201d Wice said. \u201cThis is something that\u2019s played out regularly as part of the campaign season.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A certain number of valid signatures are required in order for a candidate to earn a spot on the ballot. The number of signatures needed ranges from 500 for the state Assembly to 1,250 for U.S. Congress, up to 15,000 for State Comptroller. Wice said candidates are generally advised to get at least twice the number of signatures required to hedge against a challenge. Candidates themselves do not collect the signatures, which are gathered by paid staff or volunteers.<\/p>\n
In order for a signature to be valid, the signer must be a registered voter in the electoral district and a member of the political party of the prospective candidate, and must not have signed another candidate\u2019s petition.<\/p>\n
At his April press conference, Amoriell said those data points can be difficult to verify.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a person carrying a petition asks for a signature, they don\u2019t ask for ID; they don\u2019t have a way of verifying that information,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat they do is they ask the person: Are these three things true? (And) if they are, are you willing to support our candidate to get on the ballot?’\u201d<\/p>\n
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Wice said the process of gathering signatures and surviving potential ballot challenges can also favor established political incumbents, who have the finances and experience to employ professionals to gather petition signatures. But newcomers to the world of politics often have to rely on less-experienced volunteers, leading to a higher probability of errors.<\/p>\n
In the event of a petition challenge, a candidate must also then navigate the thorny legal process of clearing their name.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to have some level of quality control,” Wice said. “Some candidates who can afford it will go to professional petition-gathering operations and have it done by people they can rely on.\u00a0A well-organized candidate will have the people power behind them to challenge signatures. That\u2019s a very painstaking and lengthy process, but it\u2019s something that an artful candidate will always do if they want to knock their opponents off the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other contested races<\/p>\n
A candidate can also face a challenge over claims their own address isn\u2019t within the electoral district they\u2019re running in. In New York\u2019s 18th Congressional District \u2014 covering all of Orange County and portions of Ulster and Dutchess counties \u2014 Republican primary candidate\u00a0Sharanjit Thind dealt with a complaint filed with the Board of Elections by Ulster County Clerk Taylor Bruck, whose filing noted that Thind had a Long Island mailing address.<\/p>\n
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But although politicians are free to label their opponent as a carpetbagger or interloper, congressional candidates in New York have no residency requirement: A candidate can live outside the congressional district even after an election as long as they reside within the state. The challenge against\u00a0Thind was dismissed in state Supreme Court in Albany on May 1, but by then he had already dropped out of the race.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the neighboring 17th Congressional District in the lower Hudson Valley, Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Mike\u00a0Lawler has objected to the ballot signatures for his Democratic challenger Effie Phillips-Staley. A state Supreme Court justice in Rockland County found that\u00a0Phillips-Staley had more than 500 invalid signatures stemming from a fraudulent canvasser, but more than 2,000 valid ones, which allowed her to stay on the ballot.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough fraud has been established, the petitioners have not introduced a single piece of evidence to indicate that candidate Phillips-Staley, her campaign, or the Democratic Party in whose primary she aspires to participate, personally engaged, knew, or should be chargeable with knowing in any fraudulent activity,\u201d the judge in the case wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That ruling didn\u2019t stop Lawler from continuing to call for further investigation into the case, even earning a response from President Donald\u00a0J. Trump, who called for further investigation in a post on Truth Social endorsing\u00a0Lawler.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cJustice should be sought, and the fraud should be investigated,\u201d Trump wrote in the post.<\/p>\n
In the state comptroller\u2019s race against incumbent Democrat Thomas DiNapoli, the state Board of Elections found that 11,225 signatures submitted by primary challenger\u00a0Adem Bunkeddeko were invalid, disqualifying him from appearing on the ballot. Bunkedekko subsequently challenged the finding in state Supreme Court in Kings County, but was rejected by the judge, who said the burden fell on Bunkedekko to establish “that each challenged signature was improperly invalidated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The state board also found that another candidate running against\u00a0DiNapoli, Raj Goyle, had more than 15,000 invalid signatures, but had enough valid ones to appear on the ballot.<\/p>\n
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At the state level, incumbent Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar, a Queens Democrat, was sued by primary challenger David\u00a0Orkin, who alleged his own supporters’ signatures had appeared on\u00a0Rajkumar’s petitions. A state Supreme Court justice dismissed the case, saying\u00a0Orkin\u2019s legal team had not followed proper procedure for challenging ballot signatures. Orkin\u2019s team has appealed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe legal system is expansive, but the signature thresholds for most offices are not that high,\u201d said Paul Newell, an attorney representing\u00a0Orkin’s campaign. \u201cA credible campaign should be able to get there without fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stuart Amoriell, center right, a restaurant owner in Lake Placid running in New York’s 21st Congressional District, is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[33392,35845,609,611,844,75,84,83,9,24,63,36401,530,27536],"class_list":["post-226937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-adk","tag-dutchco","tag-government","tag-hvexp","tag-latestnews","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-orangeco","tag-state","tag-ulstco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}