On November 5, the city of Central Falls, Rhode Island, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit, to overturn the U.S. District Court opinion in Fontes v City of Central Falls. The U.S. District Court, on October 8, had struck down a city ordinance that says if a voter signs for one candidate, and later signs for another candidate for the same office, the signature that counts is the one that was submitted first. The case in the 1st Circuit is Fontes v City of Central Falls, 09-2516.
Ironically, Rhode Island election laws, like the election laws of most states, have no prohibition on a voter signing for two different candidates for the same office. In other words, the city of Central Falls imposed a ballot access restriction that does not exist in state law in that state. This particular lawsuit had arisen when Hipolito Fontes had gone door-to-door to get the needed 200 valid signatures to run for Mayor in a non-partisan election. Campaigners for the incumbent Mayor, who was the only other candidate, followed Fontes and asked the same voters to sign the Mayor’s petition as well. Because enough voters signed both petitions, and because the Mayor turned his petition in first, Fontes only had 197 valid signatures and would not have been on the ballot except for the U.S. District Court’s order, putting him on the ballot. Fontes lost the election, receiving 426 votes; the incumbent received 1,495 votes.
If there were an issue with a city having different ballot access laws than that of a State isn’t that a matter for the state courts?
The attorneys for Fontes, in their brief, didn’t make a big deal out of the fact that Rhode Island state election law has no prohibition on signing twice.
I find it a bit odd that their are such petitioning rules for local (non-partisan) city office.
Only two people filed for office and I doubt that is too different from the cities history.
I wonder if the Mayor Moreau’s signature collectors actually followed those for Fontes. That may be an extrapolation.
According to the district court ruling, Moreau filed 2058 signatures while Fontes filed 333. 136 of those for Fontes were disqualified, including 65 duplicates, which left him 3 short of the needed 200 signatures. It was these 65 duplicates that were at issue. Meanwhile several hundred of the Moreau signatures were disqualified, including 111 duplicates.
If Moreau solicitors were simply following Fontes from door to door, it would appear that many if not most persons were rejecting Fontes, but agreeing to sign for Moreau. More likely, Moreau solicitors simply did a mass trawl of the city (which has a bit over 6000 registered voters), and in actuality was beaten to the clerk’s office more often than not.
Of the 264 Fontes signatures from, 65 (25%) were duplicates filed by Moreau first, 111 (42%) were duplicates filed by Fontes first, and 88 (33%) were unique to Fontes.
The judge seems to overly concerned that 1500 voters were “disenfranchised” by signing Moreau’s petition, and may have based his decision in part based on the feeling. Otherwise, the Central Falls procedure would at worst appear to be a clumsy implementation of a reasonable regulation to prevent a voter from supporting two candidacies.