Thomas Breen file photo
Abdussabur: "The extraordinary rejection rate for the candidates of color raises a 'red flag' as to whether uniform standards were applied to all petitioners."
Mayoral challenger Shafiq Abdussabur has filed a lawsuit in state court seeking to get his name on the Sept. 12 Democratic primary ballot — claiming that he did in fact gather enough petition signatures to qualify, contrary to the findings of the city’s registrar of voters.
On Thursday, Abdussabur and city clerk hopeful Robert Lee filed that lawsuit against city Democratic Registrar of Voters Shannel Evans and City/Town Clerk Michael Smart.
Abdussabur and Lee are represented in the election-focused case by local attorney Patricia Kane.
The court filing contests Evans’ office’s finding on Wednesday that Abdussabur’s campaign did not submit enough valid petition signatures from registered New Haven Democrats in order to make it onto the Sept. 12 primary ballot to run against two-term incumbent Mayor Justin Elicker, who was endorsed by the local Democratic Party at its July 25 convention.
Abdussabur, a retired police sergeant, and fellow mayoral challengers Liam Brennan and Tom Goldenberg each needed signatures from at least 5 percent of registered New Haven Democrats — or 1,623 in total — in order to secure ballot access.
According to Evans’ office’s weeklong count, only Brennan, a former legal aid attorney, wound up making the cut with 1,850 valid signatures. Abdussabur’s petition was rejected for having only 1,406 valid signatures. Goldenberg, an ex-McKinsey consultant, had his petition rejected for submitting only 1,122 valid signatures.
Evans turned down Abdussabur’s and Goldenberg’s Democratic primary petitions for five stated reasons: 1) too many signatures were from people who are not registered Democrats; 2) too many were from people who are not registered to vote in New Haven; 3) too many signatures and other relevant signer information (including printed name, date of birth, and address) were illegibly written; 4) the back sides of some of the petition papers — where, for example, the petition circulator has to sign their name and the petition itself has to be notarized — were incomplete; 5) and too many signers did not list their addresses.
In his lawsuit on Thursday, Abdussabur moved to reverse Evans’ finding and sought to blaze a court-ordered path onto the primary ballot. (Evans declined to comment for this story; Smart could not be reached for comment, though a representative from his office declined to comment.)
Kane wrote in the six-page legal complaint that Abdussabur — running as a campaign slate with Lee — submitted a total of 2,700 petition signatures to the registrar’s office between Aug. 2 and Aug. 9.
“A rule of thumb in securing political petition signatures is to anticipate a rejection rate of 20 – 30% and to have many more signatures than the required minimum,” the lawsuit reads. “Applying this metric to the 2,700 signatures submitted by the Campaign, 540 – 900 signatures would be a reasonable range for rejected signatures.”
But on Aug. 16, Evans notified the campaign that only 1,406 signatures were valid, leaving them 217 signatures short of qualifying for the primary. That means that an “unprecedented” 51 percent of signatures were rejected, according to the lawsuit.
“The Plaintiffs have reason to believe that 217 or more valid signatures exist among the 1,394 rejects,” the lawsuit continues. It does not say why exactly it believes these signatures are valid, besides that Abdussabur and Lee “enlisted 20 volunteers and paid staff, including the candidates, to solicit sufficient valid signatures to qualify them for the Primary Election ballot.” The lawsuit also states that nowhere in the petition instructions or in state statutes “are there provisions for rejecting a person who is otherwise verifiable because the signature is illegible, even if the printed name is legible or if the person signed her/his last name first and first name last or even put the wrong birth date down.”
The lawsuit continues: “The Registrar’s rejection of so many signatures violates both the spirit of the law supporting voter participation in the nominating process and the law itself as set forth in CGS. 9 – 453f, k, l, m and o, attached hereto as Exhibit 3. The extraordinary rejection rate for the candidates of color raises a ‘red flag’ as to whether uniform standards were applied to all petitioners.”
The lawsuit concludes by stating what harm Abdussabur’s campaign has allegedly incurred, and by laying out what legal relief it wants from the court — namely, to have his and Lee’s names put on the primary ballot.
That section of the lawsuit reads in full:
“If the Plaintiffs’ names are not approved to be on the ballot prior to September 5, 2023, the Plaintiffs, having no other remedy at law, will suffer irreparable harm and injury by virtue of not being Candidates for the respective offices after diligent efforts and the expenditure of donor and Democracy Fund monies.
“If the Plaintiffs’ names are not approved to be on the ballot prior to September 5, 2023, the Plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm in that there will be insufficient time under the November 7, 2023 Municipal Election Calendar to comply with the requirements for Absentee Ballots and Supervised Balloting.
“If the Plaintiffs fail to qualify to be on the ballot prior to September 5, 2023, the Plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm in that they will be unable to be candidates for office in the Democratic Primary Election.
“WHEREFORE , as authorized by CGS. 9 – 328 and CGS 9 – 329a, the Plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court order the Town Clerk and the Registrar of Voters to approve sufficient signatures according to law so that the Plaintiffs will qualify for the ballot for their respective offices prior to September 5, 2023.”
In addition to seeking access to the September Democratic primary ballot, Abdussabur has also filed with the city clerk’s office to run for mayor as an independent candidate in November.
Reached for comment by phone on Friday, Abdussabur doubled down on his campaign’s contention that they have submitted enough valid signatures, and should be allowed onto the primary ballot.
“I think it’s important to show that they discounted nearly 1,200 signatures,” he said. “These are people who signed this petition, who are ready for a change, that believe New Haven needs a new mayor.”
According to the state court’s online records, Judge Michael Kamp has ordered the defendants to show up to court next Wednesday “to show cause why an injunction should not issue against them as prayed for in the foregoing complaint and application.”