On August 29, a Connecticut state court ruled against Shafiq Abdussabur, a candidate for Mayor of New Haven who wanted to be on the September primary ballot. Abdussabur v Evans, New Haven Superior Court, NH-cv-23-6135336. His petition was rejected for not having enough signatures. The very day he was ruled off the ballot, he filed a lawsuit and evidence that his petition did have enough valid signatures.
The city still kept him off the ballot on the grounds that absentee voting had already started. The judge upheld that decision, citing the “Purcell Principle.” The U.S. Supreme Court had invented this principle in 2006, in a case that hadn’t even been briefed or argued in the U.S. Supreme Court. The “Purcell Principle” said election procedures cannot be changed too soon before an election. Now this Connecticut court has expanded the principle to include correcting errors in the list of candidates who should be on the ballot. This completely contradicts the history of past U.S. Supreme Court intervention in adding candidates to the ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court kept George Wallace on the Ohio ballot in 1968 in October 15; added independent presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy to the Texas ballot in 1976 on September 30; and put the Harold Washington Party on the Cook County, Illinois ballot in 1992 on October 25, only two weeks before the general election.
AUTOMATIC REDO OF ILLEGAL ELECTIONS.
Too late for 2020 illegal election redo?
The fundamental problem is the insane number of signatures required to qualify for the Democrat primary, and the use of partisan election in a small city.
The incumbent mayor qualified for the primary at a party meeting. Three candidates petitioned to get on the primary ballot. One was successful. Two others had too many signatures rejected.
One said sheets circulated by a person registered as “Daniel” but who signed as “Dan” were tossed. That candidate did not challenge the ruling in part because he had been endorsed by the Republicans under Conn-fusion.
Abdussabur claims he had enough signatures, but that challenge would have had to go to the SOS and would not have been settled in time. He has since qualified as an independent for the general election with much fewer signatures than needed for the primary.
The house wins again!
Place your bets for the next round, folks.