(Updated 7:36 p.m.) Mayoral candidate Toni Harp dispatched a spirited overflow crowd at her headquarters Thursday night to hit the streets with petitions to get her name on the Democratic primary ballot — after an embarrassing blunder removed her name from it.
Hundreds of supporters crammed Harp’s Whalley Avenue headquarters mere hours after her campaign emailed an “emergency” appeal for help.
The appeal came after the embarrassing blunder came to light: Harp’s name was supposed to appear on the Sept. 10 mayoral primary ballot because she received the overwhelming endorsement of the Democratic Town Committee at a convention Tuesday night. But then the DTC missed a Wednesday 4 p.m. deadline to file papers to have her name placed on the ballot — as well as the names of all 30 party-endorsed candidates for the Board of Aldermen.
So now Harp and all 30 aldermanic candidates have to petition their ways onto the ballot. The same holds for endorsed clerk candidate Michael Smart. Harp is one of five Democrats running for mayor, seeking to succeed retiring 20-year incumbent John DeStefano.
Yelling to the crowd of supporters who occupied every inch of space at her headquarters Thursday evening and spilled out onto the street, Harp spoke of turning the setback into a new source of energy and commitment for the campaign.
“In every cloud there is a silver lining. We’re going to show this town, we’re going to show this state, what this organization is all about!” Harp cried out.
“That’s right!” responded a supporter in the crowd.
“Sometimes we have hiccups. But even when we do, we keep on marching forward!” Harp continued.
Meanwhile, her campaign arranged to have both Harp’s name and clerk candidate Smart’s name appear on the petitions they’ll circulate. That means they will appear on the ballot as a slate.
Since no other candidates are running as a slate, that means Harp’s name and Smart’s name will appear at the top of the ballot if they succeed in collecting the 2,406 signatures of registered Democrats needed to qualify for the ballot, Deputy City Clerk Sally Brown said Thursday night.
Following is a portion of an earlier version of this story:
Harp emerged from the city clerk’s office shortly after 2 p.m. Thursday after having submitted paperwork to get her petitions.
Rather than contest the decision to leave her off the ballot, she sought to turn the events into a positive for her campaign — an “invigoration.”
“We’re going to go out to the street,” she proclaimed. “We’re going to take it to the voters. We’re going to go door to door. This is going to excite the campaign. I can’t wait to get out there. …
“Every time I’ve run for a new office I’ve had to petition,” she said. “This is nothing new for me. It’s exciting. It invigorates the race, and I look forward to it.”
Harp will now need the signatures of 2,406 registered Democratic voters to qualify for the ballot. Three of her opponents — Kermit Carolina, Henry Fernandez, and Justin Elicker — began doing the same on Wednesday.
At 2:47 p.m. Thursday her campaign emailed supporters with an “emergency update” about the petition drive.
“COME TO 560 WHALLEY AVENUE AT 6 PM TONIGHT TO HELP TONI GET ON THE BALLOT” the email read.
The Republican Party also failed to submit the names of its four endorsed aldermanic candidates on time to the clerk’s office. So they, too, will need to petition their ways onto the general-election ballot.
“These deadlines are really concrete,” said Secretary of the State spokesman Av Harris. Candidates sometimes ask for exceptions when they miss deadlines, but officials have no leeway, he said. “The answer is no. … The clerk has zero discretion under the law. There’s no possible way that they can accept that.”
Under state law, the Democrats could have held their convention any time between July 16 and July 23. They chose to hold the convention on the last possible night before the filing deadline.
“This is more evidence that competence matters,” mayoral candidate Fernandez remarked Thursday. “If you cannot run a convention that was geared from the beginning to deliver one candidate, how can you hope to manage City Hall? The people of New Haven deserve a mayor who has the integrity and experience to do the job on Day One.”
Harp’s campaign postponed a scheduled press conference on ethics Thursday to deal with the petition matter.
What went wrong?
DTC Chairwoman Jackie James said that “without giving names, a member of my executive board miscounted the time.”
“This has actually mobilized and brought everyone together. We are coming together as a city to ensure that the person that the people want for mayor and the people chose through the democratic process to get the nomination,” James said.
“We are turning oranges into orange juice, apples into apple juice, and grapes into grape juice. We are the best at what we do in the state in regards to organizing and running campaigns.”
At 4:30 p.m., the DTC sent out an email apologizing for the “petition snafu.”
“Today the New Haven Democratic Town Committee Executive Board apologized to Mayoral Candidate Toni Harp, City/Town Clerk Candidate Michael Smart, and the 30 endorsed candidates for Alderman, for a petition mishap,” the email reads.
“We’re going to make sure that every one of these candidates is able to collect their signatures and get on the ballot,” James said in the release. “We are starting tonight to go out and knock on doors and talk to Democratic voters. This will mobilize support for the party endorsed candidates and bring us all together.”