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NYC Councilman De Blasio Kicked Off The Ballot


deblasio.jpgElizabth Benjamin / NY Daily News reports:

New York’s infamously archaic and exacting petition rules have claimed another victim – this time in the form of would-be public advocate, Councilman Bill de Blasio.

De Blasio’s campaign attorney Henry Berger confirmed that his client had run afoul of the requirement regarding the “curing” of petition cover sheets, which gives candidates one shot – and one shot only – at fixing initial errors.

One false move – a misplaced numeral or missing period – and you’re dead, which is why campaigns spend so much money on election attorneys.

In this case, the problem was that de Blasio’s cover sheet claimed there were 131 volumes of petitions, when in reality there were 132.

This may seem trivial, but it was sufficient grounds for the rejection of all the Brooklyn Democrat’s 125,000+ signatures.

The fact that he has raised more than $1.3 million and landed endorsements from a slew of unions, the labor-backed Working Families Party, the Rev. Al Sharpton and numerous elected officials all over the city makes no difference in this case.

Now the only way de Blasio can get onto the ballot is via a judge’s ruling.

“This is another one of those arcane technicalities and we hope to get it resolved in court next week,” Berger said.

UPDATE: De Blasio’s campaign manager Jillian Waldman released the following statement:

“We are entirely confident we can resolve this matter working with the Board of Elections. We don’t believe the law was intended to prevent a candidate with over 125,000 signatures from getting on the ballot because of a typo.”



2 Responses

  1. That’s because he introduced and got passed
    the new Section 8 law, without first fixing up
    the agency. I don’t consider him
    a great loss.

  2. These tactics are very often used by “party bosses” to remove undesirable candidates from the ballots. Basically they use these ancient and difficult to understand rules to make sure that if they want someone off the ballot, they will find SOME way, somehow to accomplish that.

    Not much has changed in New York politics in the last century.

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