Candidates Toni Harp and Michael Smart rebounded from a technical snafu and claimed the top spot on the Democratic primary ballot, the registrar of voters confirmed Thursday.
Sharon Ferrucci, New Haven’s Democratic registrar of voters, said Thursday that her office had certified Harp and Smart’s joint ballot petitions.
Harp, who’s running for mayor, and Smart, who’s running for city clerk, were endorsed by the Democratic Town Committee at a convention last month. That should have guaranteed them a top spot on the Sept. 10 primary ballot. But the committee failed to submit its endorsements to the city clerk’s office on time, forcing Harp and Smart to petition to get on the ballot, as non-endorsed candidates have to do.
Harp and Smart teamed up to form a slate, gathering signatures on petitions with both of their names. Slates of candidates are listed at the top of the ballot. Thus, by collecting the requisite 2,406 signatures from registered New Haven Democrats, Harp and Smart were able to have their names at the top of the ballot as the Democratic committee had originally intended.
As for the other three mayoral candidates — Kermit Carolina, Justin Elicker, and Henry Fernandez — Ferrucci said it will take another week to get through the petitions they submitted on Wednesday. Harp submitted hers last week.
The candidates are running to replace 10-term incumbent John DeStefano, who is not running for re-election.
Still curious to see how this could turn out. Harp's having to scramble around to get on the ballot after the DTC's screw-up could either have sapped some of their resources before the election, or let them practice their ground game and identify weak spots. Or both. It will be interesting to see. I'm sure we'll see it all analyzed ad nauseam in the coming weeks.