Who's that? Serfilippi (at left); unmarked address line on the back of one Ward 25 petition.
Should a misstated birthday or a missing address disqualify candidates from running for office?
No, Jason Bartlett argued.
So he and candidates he has organized are challenging a decision to keep two members of a challenge slate from having their names appear on the ballot in the March 5 primary election for Democratic Party ward co-chair positions.
Bartlett and former GOP mayoral candidate Tom Goldenberg have assembled a slate of candidates under the banner of “New Haven Agenda” to seek those ward co-chair positions in the Democratic primary.
Each of New Haven’s 30 wards has two Democratic co-chairs, who vote at party conventions to endorse candidates for municipal, state and federal office. That gives them say in the party’s direction and an opportunity to rally neighbors to become involved in elections.
People usually claim the positions unopposed; this is the first time in 12 years that an organized group is challenging candidates supported by the party establishment.
The candidates needed to collect petitions with signatures from registered voters in their wards to qualify for the ballot. Eight of Bartlett’s and Goldenberg’s “New Haven Agenda” slate candidates submitted enough approved signatures to qualify for primary ballots.
Bartlett is claiming that the Registrar of Voters office should have approved the petitions of candidates in two more wards
A team of candidates in one ward, Tarolyn Moore and Rhonda Nelson-Sheffield of Newhallville’s Ward 20, wrote to the Secretary of the State’s office to request a review to allow three signatures rejected by the local office to be counted as valid — giving them enough of a margin to qualify for the ballot.
The registrar’s office discounted those three signatures because the birthdates included were way off from the signatory’s true birthdays, said Democratic Registrar of Voters Shannel Evans.
A review of the paperwork by the Independent showed that one Starr Street woman, for instance, was listed as having a Nov. 18, 2010 (or 2013; it was hard to read) birthday. Her true birthday is July 25, 1936. A Bassett Street man had an April 30, 1975 birthdate listed — not his actual March 2, 1947 birthday.
“I try to help as much as I can” and help people qualify for the ballot while following the law, Evans told the Independent. That includes, say, doublechecking a birthdate that may be a few days off, for instance. But these were way off, she noted.
“They’re elderly” and got confused, Bartlett said of the voters.
Meanwhile, in Westville’s Ward 25, potential New Haven Agenda candidate Dennis Serfilippi would have qualified for the ballot if a page with 18 signatures hadn’t been rejected. The registrar’s office rejected it because the back of the petition page had a key line left blank: where the certified circulator of the petition (Serfilippi himself) was supposed to list his address.
Serfillippi did list his address on the front page of that form as well as on the other petition pages he submitted.
“That’s not a reason to reject the whole page,” argued Bartlett.
Serfilippi, too, wrote to the Secretary of the State’s office seeking a review of the rejection in the hopes of being placed on the ballot. He wrote that he omitted that one mention of his address “in haste.”
“I do not believe this should be cause to reject an entire page of 18 signatures. Clearly the front of the petition has my address in Section A, this address is repeated in Section C at the top of page and the swearing of the oath is executed through my valid signature swearing that I did indeed circulate and collect the signatures,” he wrote.
Registrar Evans said she has asked the secretary of the state’s office for legal guidance about what leeway she has in these cases.
Asked for comment, secretary of the state spokesperson Tara Chozet referred the Independent back to the New Haven registrar’s office.
“The town committee petition process is a municipal one that is overseen by the local Registrars of Voters. There is no appeals process available via our office, and any request to review the decision would have to made to the Registrar’s office, or through the courts,” Chozet wrote in an email.
“The standard for accepting signatures on petitions (whether they are legible or not) is whether the Registrars can, through the information listed on the petition, verify 1) the person’s identity, and 2) the person’s membership in the party.”
Meanwhile, another rejected New Haven Agenda slate candidate, Jerald Barber of Ward 26, has not challenged his status. Even though he fell just one accepted signature short of the 91 approved names he needed on his petitions.
It turned out that multiple people he listed on his petitions were either Republicans or not registered, making them ineligible to sign for a Democratic Party co-chair race.
On the other hand, he benefited from some help from the registrar of voters: One Brooklawn Circle voter signed three separate pages of Barber’s petitions. In each case he was the first person listed. His signature looked the same in all three cases; his wife, answering a door knock from the Independent, confirmed that the signatures are indeed her husband’s. One of the three signatures was rejected by the registrar’s office as a duplicate. Two others were checked off as legit, though that still wasn’t enough to get Barber on the ballot.
Challenge slate "coach" Jason Bartlett gives candidates a pep talk after they file petitions.
An 86 year-old signing his birthday as a 10 or 13 year old and no one notices before submitting it to the registrar's office. You can't make this up!
If this was indeed the 86 year-old signing, are these people even aware of what they are signing?
Goldenberg should have shared his learnings with the team from his prior failed attempt to make it on the ballot.