Paul Bass Photo
Harp campaign manager Bartlett: Ballot’s too “subjective.”
The city clerk’s office ordered a new batch of 4,000 absentee ballots Thursday after the manager of Toni Harp’s mayoral campaign complained to the state about their “subjective” design.
The campaign manager, Jason Bartlett, reacted in outrage upon the release Thursday of the design of the ballot for the Sept. 10 Democratic Party mayoral, city/town clerk and aldermanic primaries.
“She’s been manipulating the ballot!” Bartlett said of Deputy City Clerk Sally Brown while pointing to a sample ballot print-out from her office’s website. “This has never been done before in the history of the state!”
The ballot complicates the Harp team’s ability to deliver a simple message to voters about what row to check off at the polls.
Bartlett complained to the secretary of the state’s office about several aspects of the ballot. The state ended up largely agreeing with Brown on most of the issues but found one small error to fix: the placement of a line that proclaims that the ballot contains no endorsed candidates.
The city had ordered 4,000 absentee ballots to begin sending out to voters. As a result of a conversation with the secretary of the state’s office, Brown decided to scrap those ballots (a total of two people had voted in person with that ballot so far as of the time she made the decision Thursday) and order the new batch with the endorsement message placed in a different spot. She said she expects to have her staff come in to work Saturday morning to get those ballots in the mail so voters can receive them on Monday. (The ballots used at polls on primary day itself have not yet been printed. They will look the same.)
Campaign manager Bartlett had sought broader changes in the ballot’s design.
Bartlett objected in part to the decision not to place any names of candidates on the top row of the ballot, the spot usually reserved for party-endorsed candidates, or else (in the absence of endorsed candidates) the candidates whose names come first in alphabetical order.
Harp’s name appears on the ballot alongside city/town clerk candidate Michael Smart on Row B, not Row A. They appear there because they petitioned to get on the ballot as a “slate.” That put them ahead of other candidates who petitioned alone to get on the ballot.
On the ballots as originally printed, the following bilingual message appeared on Row A: “No Party Endorsement/ No Hay Endorso.”
“No judge is going to allow you to skip a row. You don’t start editorializing on a ballot line,” Bartlett argued.
State Direction
Brown (pictured) responded that she merely followed the rules given to her by the secretary of the state’s office. That’s why she left the row blank except for the “no endorsement” message. She prepared the ballot in consultation with secretary of the state staff attorney Ted Bromley.
She said she didn’t put the names of candidates on line A — the line she said is traditionally reserved for endorsed party candidates — “because there is no endorsed slate” of candidates. The Democratic Town Committee voted at a July 23 convention to endorse Harp, Smart, and a slate of aldermanic candidates at a convention. But then officials neglected to meet a deadline for submitting their names to the clerk’s office, thereby losing the endorsed slot on the ballot. Hundreds of Harp supporters then gathered signatures on petitions to place Harp’s name on the ballot.
Later Thursday afternoon both Brown and secretary of the state spokesman Av Harris said they agreed that the “no endorsement” message should appear instead in the headers of each category (like “mayor” and “city/town clerk”) rather than in Row A: and that Row A should remain blank.
Bartlett also objected to the decision to start listing aldermanic candidates on Row C, rather than on Harp’s and Smart’s row, in wards holding aldermanic primaries. The ballot currently leaves the “alderperson” column blank on Harp’s and Smart’s Row B; the first name of an aldermanic candidate appears on line C, beside mayoral candidate Kermit Carolina and clerk candidate Sergio Rodriguez. (Click here to see all the ballots for wards that include aldermanic primaries.)
Brown responded that she couldn’t place aldermanic candidates on Harp’s line precisely because of the Harp campaign’s decision to petition as a slate with clerk candidate Smart — but without any aldermanic candidates. The Harp campaign found a law that allowed them to add Smart’s name in order to qualify as a slate — and thereby obtain the top line on the ballot — to avoid having her name would appear on the bottom row (because it comes last alphabetically among the four Democratic mayoral candidates)..
“He [Bartlett] dug up that law” about qualifying for a top row with a slate, Brown said. “Now they want aldermen on the line, too.” State law doesn’t permit that, Brown said.
“That is correct,” secretary of the state spokesman Harris concurred.
Bartlett argued that a mayor-clerk “slate” like Harp-Smart differs from a traditional party “slate” like “Republican” or “Working Party,” and therefore should allow for having a separate aldermanic candidate listed beside it.
“According to the law, which we admit is complicated, candidates for the post of alderman cannot appear on the same line as a candidate for a city-wide office such as mayor or city/town clerk. A slate includes candidates for like office such as a city-wide post,” Av Harris responded.
It’s unclear how important ballot order is in the post-party lever era, in which voters fill out their choices for each candidate by hand rather than pulling levers on a machine, including, in the old days, a lever that covers an entire row of candidates.
You’ll Need A Scorecard
Even if Brown had placed aldermanic candidates’ names on a row with Harp, some of those candidates would still have been opponents of candidates who are in fact running with Harp’s and the Democratic Town Committee’s support. That’s because all aldermanic candidates are petitioning candidates, thanks to the DTC post-convention paperwork goof. And none petitioned on a slate with a mayoral candidate. So their names all appear alphabetically on the ballot.
As a result, Harp-backed aldermanic candidates like Dixwell’s Jeanette Morrison, Dwight’s Frank Douglass, the Hill’s Jackson-Brooks, Fair Haven Heights’ Barbara Constantinople, and Newhallville’s Delphine Clyburn will see their names appear on a row next to that of either mayoral candidate Kermit Carolina or mayoral candidate Justin Elicker.
The Carolina campaign, meanwhile, is sending a simple message to its supporters: “Vote Row C.” (A campaign hand-out is pictured above.) The row includes city clerk candidate Sergio Rodriguez, who at this point has not aligned with a mayoral candidate. But the Carolina camp doesn’t mind.
Carolina aide Michael Jefferson recalled that he had opposed Bartlett’s efforts to win permission to have Harp petition along with clerk candidate Smart as a slate.
“Be careful,” Jefferson said Thursday, “what you wish for.”