Bartlett: Thwarted by “crazy technicality.”
Jason Bartlett collected signatures to run in a Democratic primary for state senator — but those signatures ended up not counting.
Thursday at 4 p.m. was the deadline for challengers like Bartlett to submit petitions to qualify for a spot on the Aug. 11 primary ballot.
Because of Covid-19 restrictions, Gov. Ned Lamont issued an executive order to allegedly make it easier for challengers to make the primary ballot — fewer signatures, two extra days, relaxed rules on how to gather them (with electronic options and a socially distanced option). A federal judge ruled that Lamont’s order fairly preserved a challenger’s ability to make the ballot.
Three New Haveners beg to differ.
Sergio Rodriguez attempted to qualify for a primary for Democratic registrar of voters. He said he did collect around 1,100 signatures of registered Democrats. But he needed another 300-plus. So he didn’t make it.
“Covid changed everything,” Rodriguez said: Supporters were in some cases reluctant to circulate petitions. People were reluctant to answer their doors or come out to sign petitions.
Alex Taubes, looking to challenge State Sen. Martin Looney, didn’t even bother. He said it would be impossible to collect the 1,116 signatures needed in 16 days. Instead, he said, he’s looking to make the Nov. 3 general election ballot as an independent candidate. He needs only 215 signatures to qualify. He has until Aug. 7 to collect them.
Jason Bartlett, on the other hand, forged ahead to try to collect the 1,028 signatures he needed to challenge incumbent State Sen. Gary Winfield in the Aug. 11 primary.
He collected 291 electronic signatures as allowed under Lamont’s order, he said.
He quickly learned that that process was too laborious to get enough signatures in the 16-day window.
So he went old-school. He sent out teams of petitioners to try to collect the signatures in person. Even amid the pandemic.
And his team came through, he said: They collected over 1,100 handwritten signatures to add to the electronic ones.
Then he went to the New Haven Registrar of Voters Office to hand in the petitions. He learned that most petitions couldn’t be accepted. All petitions that have more than one signature must, under state law, be notarized on the back, by a witness attesting that the circulator indeed collected the signatures.
Bartlett, a former state representative and city official, didn’t do that. He said he printed out the form he got electronically from the Secretary of the State, and the notary page wasn’t on the back.
Furthermore, he argued, he shouldn’t have had to had the forms notarized because of Lamont’s special order. Under that order — because of fears of Covid-19 contact — the governor allowed petitioners to leave a petition by a door. Then they could retrieve the petition with the voter’s signature without having to actually witness the signing.
That allowance was spelled out in Section III of guidance the Secretary of the State’s office issued for candidates. “A petition circulator need not witness the signature of the enrolled party member signed under the process established by Executive Order No. 7LL.”
“The back is all about the circulator … Then why do I need an attestation about who they are? What’s the point?” Bartlett argued in an interview Thursday.
“My understanding was that the circulator attestation was not relevant. Because that was what I had read. Now they’re saying if I had more than one signature on a petition, I had to have a notary sign the back!”
He made that argument as well to Registrar of Voters Shannel Evans, whose office reviews the petitions under the aegis of the Secretary of the State’s Office.
“We check them for the state. It’s not our call,” Evans told the Independent.
So she called the Secretary of the State’s Office. She was told to reject Bartlett’s petitions for failing to have the backs notarized.
Secretary of the state spokesman Gabe Rosenberg confirmed that decision.
He noted that the same guidance Bartlett referenced also included this seventh point: “Petitions signed by more than one enrolled party member must continue to comply with section 9 – 404b and 9 – 410 of the General Statute, notwithstanding Executive Order No. 7LL. Consistent with existing Executive Orders, remote notarizations may be utilized for petitions signed by more than one registered voter.” Meaning you still need that notarization, but you can do it remotely.
Rosenberg also said that the petitions made available electronically included the page with the form for a notary to attest to the circulator’s work. (Here’s the page with the link to the document.)
“It’s the second page. If you printed it out two-sided, it’s on the back,” Rosenberg said.
Bartlett said the state made it hard enough for a challenger to make the ballot during a pandemic. He called Thursday’s ruling “a crazy technicality that doesn’t even comport to the idea that you have to have a base of support to run.”