Primary Petition Papers Start Coming In

Fair Haven Democrats will get to pick between two different candidates for Ward 15 alder this September, now that incumbent Ernie Santiago and challenger Frankie Redente have both successfully petitioned their ways onto the primary ballot.

And two of the three Democratic mayoral hopefuls seeking to unseat party-endorsed incumbent Mayor Justin Elicker have begun submitting signatures to the Registrar of Voters office in their own respective bids to give primary voters a choice.

That’s the latest in this year’s chock-full-of-candidates municipal election races.

Democratic Registrar of Voters Shannel Evans told the Independent that her office has received, checked through, and certified petition signatures submitted by the two Democrats running to represent Ward 15. 

Both Santiago and Redente successfully gathered signatures from more than 5 percent of registered Democrats in the ward, which for Ward 15 translated to a minimum of 36. That means that both will have their names listed on the Sept. 12 Democratic Party primary ballot. Ward 15 was the only ward in the city for which the Democratic Party did not formally endorse a candidate at its July 25 convention, after the ward’s co-chairs split on whether to back the incumbent or the challenger.

Evans also confirmed that two Democratic mayoral candidates — former police sergeant Shafiq Abdussabur and former legal aid attorney Liam Brennan — have started submitted their own petition paperwork to the registrar’s office in their respective bids to make it onto the Sept. 12 primary ballot to challenge Mayor Elicker, who overwhelmingly won the local party’s endorsement. Brennan’s campaign submitted its first petition documents on Tuesday, Abdussabur dropped off his on Wednesday.

Democratic mayoral challengers need to gather at least 1,623 signatures from registered New Haven Democrats in order to qualify for the ballot. They have until Aug. 9 to reach that number. Abdussabur campaign manager Gage Frank told the Independent that Abdussabur dropped off 1,633 signatures on Wednesday, and that his campaign plans to keep on collecting and dropping off signatures until they make it onto the ballot. Brennan told the Independent that his campaign has collected around 1,300 signatures so far, and has dropped off more than 400 with the registrar’s office. He said his campaign plans to keep dropping off signatures over the course of the week until he qualifies for ballot access.

Evans said that her office will likely need a week or longer to go through all of these petition signatures and verify them before passing them along to the city clerk’s office. That means she might not know until Aug. 9, or perhaps a little longer after that, as to which mayoral challengers have collected enough verified signatures and will therefore be on the Sept. 12 ballot.

Tom Goldenberg, a third Democratic mayoral challenger who was also recently endorsed by the Republican Party for November’s general election, has not yet submitted any Democratic primary petition paperwork to the registrar’s office, according to Evans. (Goldenberg told the Independent on Wednesday that he is still petitioning to try get on the Democratic primary ballot.)

Evans also said that Abdussabur is running as a slate with Robert Lee, a Democratic challenger running for city/town clerk against party-endorsed incumbent Michael Smart. That means the signatures submitted by Abdussabur’s campaign on Wednesday are for both Abdussabur’s mayoral run and Lee’s city/town clerk run.

But wait, there’s more! 

According to the city’s Election Information website, 57 people have filed to run for various local offices this municipal election year. That includes six for mayor, three for city clerk, two for the Board of Education District 2 seat, and 46 for the city’s 30 different alder seats.

Check out the full list of registered candidates below, and click on the Independent’s ​“Politics” category link here to read through some of recent local political coverage.