Several candidates for Mayor and City Council of White Plains, New York, had their petitions invalidated, partly because many signers wrote “W.P” instead of “White Plains” in the line for the name of the city. They sued in state court. On August 14, the state supreme court judge ruled from the bench that those signatures will be allowed. A written order is expected in two days. The candidates are running in the September 12 Democratic primary. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news about the problem.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
The courts LOVE the *intention* stuff– aka occult mind-reading.
WP = WAR plans, etc. ???
Link please?
When the written decision comes out on Wednesday, I will do my best to link to it. Until then there is nothing to link to.
I found a local news story with a copy of the decision.
http://whiteplains.dailyvoice.com/politics/judge-rules-wp-signatures-valid-forcing-white-plains-primary/719312/
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/9efd0c_5f2c1eea4da944fba41c2cf2665aa6d7.pdf
State Supreme Court Justice Lawrence H. Ecker wrote in the ruling:
“An individual who is otherwise lawfully entitled to sign a petition in support of his/her candidate of choice should not be automatically eliminated because he or she used an obvious, common sense, unequivocal manner in which he or she demonstrated residence in White Plains or “W.P.” Hence, notwithstanding the absence of a specific objection of respondent to the Board’s policy and rulings, the court finds there should be no bar to the consideration of these signatures. There is only one city involved in this election, namely White Plains, and only one city that the abbreviation “W.P.” can represent in Westchester County, namely White Plains.”
Another tidbit from the decision:
Leucona filed 2,641 raw signatures. The Westchester County BOE found 950 signatures valid. That’s a validity rate of 36%.
Kraver, Siddiqui, and Goldman filed 2,202 raw signatures. The BOE found 1,053 signatures valid. That’s a validity rate of 48%.
It appears that the people who objected to the signatures (confusingly called “Petitioners” in the context of a court decision) actually reviewed each raw signature to see if the address fell within the city limits of White Plains, and then filed objections over a number of these signatures. The court sustained 9 of these individual objections for Leucona and 10 of these individual objections for Kraver, Siddiqui, and Goldman. Basically, just because someone says they live in White Plains and just because the US Post Office delivers mail to them with a White Plains address, that is not sufficient to make them a voter in White Plains elections.