Report on Petition Challenges – Who Is Now Running!

I attended most of the recent hearings on petition challenges at the New York City Board of Elections.

Some cases will now be heard in court. So the list I will be posting of the remaining Primary contests may change.

This year, it seemed to me, that there were many less challenges involving “technicalities”. Most candidates who were removed from the ballot simply did not file enough signatures from registered voters. A few candidates from the major Parties (Ruben Diaz, Jr., Leticia James + others) lost minor Party cross-endorsements over incorrect filing of paper work.

A number of candidates actually remained on the ballot even though the Board reported that they did not have enough signatures because of “technical” violations in the objections submitted by their opponent.

I’m not going to comment here on the issues surround the petitions of Councilman Bill de Blasio & Alan Gerson and former Councilman Guillermo Linares, as I assume everybody reading this knows about them.

Citywide
 
As I predicted none of the serious Democratic candidates for 2 of the 3 citywide positions challenged the petitions of the fringe candidates.

However, Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign did successfully challenge his potential Republican opponent – former Green Party activist Walter Iwachiw. The Board ruled that Iwachiw had 559 valid signatures when 7,500 are required. Mr. Iwachiw did not dispute this but asked the Board to waive their requirements, which they did not do.

Even though nobody challenged their petitions, nuisance Mayoral candidates Jose Adames & Jimmy McMillan were removed by the Board because of their violation of some obscure, and I think not significant, Board rules. While I’m convince that Adames & McMillan do not deserve to be on the ballot since it’s clear that they not submit enough signatures, I don’t think they should have been removed in the way they were. The other perennial fringe candidate, Roland Rogers, withstood a question regarding his residency and is on the ballot for Mayor.

Jose Adames challenged Mayor Bloomberg’s Republican petitions based on a blatant misreading of the laws by Adames and Bloomberg remains on the ballot. This means that Adames will continue to illegally deface public property with his rantings and the Department of Sanitation will apparently continue to allow him to do so.

http://www.r8ny.com/blog/jerry_skurnik/tolerating_law_breaking.html

Mr. Collins confronted Mr. Adames at a board meeting in February. “I stood up,” he recalled, “and I said to him, ‘I have a question: Will you stop littering the community with your fliers?’ People in the audience applauded. He said, ‘No.’ ”

Kathy Dawkins, a spokeswoman for the Department of Sanitation, said Mr. Adames had never been fined because his posters do not provide his address or telephone number, which the department requires to issue a summons.

Imitaz Syed stayed on the ballot for Public Advocate but to my surprise, John Liu’s campaign challenged the petition of Salim Ejaz for Comptroller.

Here is a list of the remaining Primary candidates. As I said above, this can change.

Manhattan
 
Democrats

District Attorney

Leslie Crocker Snyder, Richard Aborn & Cyrus Vance, Jr. . . .

City Council

1st CCD

Margaret Chin, Peter Gleason, P.J. Kim & Arthur Gregory.

2nd CCD

Rosie Mendez & Juan Pagan

3rd CCD

Christine Quinn, Maria Passanante-Derr & Yetta Kurland.

7th CCD

Robert Jackson, Victor Armando Bernace,  Manuel Lantigua and Fred Masson.

8th CCD

Melissa Mark-Viverito, Robert Rodriguez, Thomas Santiago & Calvin Solomon.

9th CCD

Inez Dickens, Carlton Berkley & Landon Dais.

10th CCD

Ydanis Rodriguez, Francesca Castellanos, Manny Velazquez, Luis Facuno, Richard Realmuto, Cleofis Sarete, Francisco Spies & Ruben Dario Vargas.

District Leader

64th AD, Part B

Female – Alice Cancel & Norma Ramirez

Male – John Quinn & David Diaz.

64th AD, Part C

Paul Newell & Avram Solomon Turkel
 
66th AD, Part B

Jean Grillo & Noel Jefferson

68th AD, Part A

Male – Adam Clayton Powell IV & Johnny Rivera.

Female – Diane Green & Evette Zayas  

68th AD, Part B

 Female – Candy Vives-Vasquez & Peggy Morales.

 Male – Harry Rodriguez & Manuel Onativia

68th AD, Part C

John Ruiz & John Estrella

69th AD, Part A

Cynthia Doty & Carmen Quinones.

72nd AD, Part B

Rafael Escano & Manny De Los Santos

74th AD, Part A

Female – Rosie Mendez & Mildred Martinez

Male – Anthony Feliciano & Roberto Caballero.

In a strange situation, in the 67th AD, Part B, where I live and vote both incumbent District Leader Earl Scott and his challenger, Derek Meilman were removed from the ballot. The Democratic County Committee for the district will select a Leader after the Primary.
 

Republicans

City Council

4th CCD

Ashok Chandra & Neal D’Alessio

Bronx

 
Democrats

City Council
 

11th CCD
 

Oliver Koppell & Tony Cassino.

12th CCD

Larry Seabrook & Andrew King, Jerome Rice, & Sebastian Ulanga.

14th CCD

Maria Baez, Fernando Cabrera & Yudelka Tapia

16th CCD

Helen Foster, Mark Escoffery-Bey & Carlos Sierra.

 17th CCD

 Maria Del Carmen Arroyo & Israel Martinez

 Brooklyn

 Democrats

33rd CCD

Isaac Abraham, Ken Baer, Doug Biviano, Ken Diamondstone, Steve Levin, Joanne Simon & Evan Thies.

34th CCD

Diana Reyna, Maritza Davila & Gerald Esposito

35th CCD

Letitia James, Delia Hunley-Adossa & Medhanie Estiphanos.

36th CCD

Al Vann, Mark Winston Griffith, William Carrington, Robert Cornegy, David Grinage, Saquan Jones, & Tremaine Wright.

38th CCD

Sara Gonzalez & Robinson Iglesias

39th  CCD

John Heyer, Brad Lander, Gary Reilly, Josh Skaller & Bob Zuckerman.

40th CCD

Mathieu Eugene, Rock Hackshaw & Rickie Tulloch.

41st CCD

Darlene Mealy, Tracy Boyland, Tulani Kinard & Anthony Herbert

42nd CCD

Charles Barron, Winchester Key, Donnezzetta Brown, Carlos Bristol, Prince Lewis & Regina Powell.

45th CCD.

Kendall Stewart, Ernest Emmanuel, Sam Taitt, Dexter McKenzie, & Jumaane Williams.

Republicans

City Council

39th  CCD

Joe Nardiello & George Smith

Queens

Borough President

Helen Marshall, Marc Leavitt & Robert Schwartz.

Council

19th CCD

Steven Behar,  Jerry Iannece, Paul Vallone, Debra Markell, Thomas Cooke & Kevin Kim.

20th CCD

John Choe, James Wu, S.J. Jung, Yen Chou, Constantine Kavadas & Isaac Sasson.

21st CCD

Julissa Ferreras & Eduardo Giraldo.

23rd CCD

Mark Weprin, Bob Friedrich & Swaranjit Singh.

25th CCD

Helen Sears, Daniel Dromm & Stanley Kalathara.

26th CCD

Deidre Feerick, Jamie Van Bramer, Brent O’Leary & David Rosasco .

 27th CCD

 Leroy Comrie & Clyde Vanel.

 28th CCD

 Tom White, Allan Jennings, Lynn Nunes, Ruben Wills & Stephen Jones

 29th CCD

Karen Koslowitz, Michael Cohen, Lynn Schulman, Heidi Harrison Chain, Albert Cohen & Mel Gagarin.

 
31st CCD

James Sanders, Jacques Leandre, Frederick Lewis,  Michael Duncan and Lou Grays.

Assembly

38th AD

Albert Baldeo, Farouk Samaroo, Michael Miller & Nick Comaianni.

Republicans

State Committee

25th AD

Howard Duffy & Stephen Graves

28th AD

Jay Golub & Bart Haggerty.

30th AD

Female – Rosemarie Iacovone & Joanne Mugno

Male – Frank Messano &. Anthony Nunziato

Staten Island

Democrats

City Council

49th CCD

Ken Mitchell, Debora Rose & Rajiv Gowda.