The Albany County Board of Elections has tossed out a Working Families Party objection against Supervisor Jack Cunningham’s opportunity to ballot for the line.
Independence Party member Councilman Sam Messina is challenging Cunningham on the Republican, Conservative and Working Families Party lines and is facing off with him in an Independence Party primary in September.
As it stands now, Cunningham can now mount a write-in campaign for the Working Families line in September with his opportunity to ballot petition signed by five party members.
There are currently 29 or so members of the party residing in Bethlehem and only two signatures were needed on an opportunity to ballot petition. Messina received the endorsement of the Working Families Party earlier this year and gathered 16 signatures for the line.
Republican Commissioner John Graziano told The Spotlight yesterday (Thursday, July 30) about the objection ruling.
It was not upheld because the objector did not list his address on the general objection, he said.
There was also a general objection filed on July 20 by an Independence Party member against the designating petitions of Cunningham, Kyle Kotary, Mark Jordan, Nanci Moquin and Gregg Sagendorph for the line.
There were 36 specific objections filed by the same member on Monday, July 27, but Graziano said its fate is out of the board of elections hands. The objections listed attorney James E. Walsh as the objector’s representative.
`It was already in court when we got it, so we are going to leave it there,` Graziano said of the decision to be made on the Independence Party objections.
Walsh told The Spotlight yesterday (Thursday, July 30) that a judge was assigned to the case and he wants to have a conference on the matter on Monday, Aug. 3.
Until then, he said he and his client are in `a holding pattern.`
`We filed a lawsuit because I think there’s a problem with the petitions filed with the board of elections,` Walsh said. `They had people collecting [signatures] as a notary and no oaths were administered.`
Walsh said the state’s election laws were broken in collecting Independence Party signatures for Cunningham’s slate.
`There are certain procedures involved in collecting signatures according to New York State Election Law and my lawsuit is making the allegation that they were not followed,` he said. `The judge is going to want to know about what happened.`
Walsh added the lawsuit was to `ensure the integrity of the process.`
Working Families Party of the Capital District spokeswoman Karen Scharff told The Spotlight last week that her party thought Messina was the better supervisor candidate and that they never gave Cunningham their support partly because he never interviewed for it.
She said Cunningham was disrespectful to the party and was trying to use the Working Families Party for another ballot line, rather than because he believed its political philosophy.
Scharff likened it to the relationship the town’s Democrats have with the county’s Independence Party.
`The Democrats obviously have some sort of deal with the Independence Party in the town of Bethlehem,` said Scharff.
However, the Working Families Party has also endorsed Bethlehem Independence Party Chairman Mark Jordan for Town Board along with Messina for supervisor. Messina carried the petitions for both of them, saying Jordan `didn’t collect a single signature.`
Jordan on the other hand voted, along with the rest of the Albany County Independence Party executive committee including Assemblyman Tim Gordon and Albany County Chairman Paul Caputo, to unanimously endorse Cunningham over their own party member for supervisor.
Jordan said he understands Scharff’s position, but objected to her characterization of his own party.
`There’s no deal in the Town Board races,` he said. `The Republicans never came to the Independence Party to interview, we only had Democrats and our own members to choose from.`
Republican Highway Superintendent Gregg Sagendorph did interview and receive the Independence Party endorsement for his re-election bid, which he has in the past, but is running unopposed.
For more on this breaking story, return to www.spotlightnews.com, or read the Wednesday, Aug. 5, print edition of The Spotlight
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