Democratic chairman says he’ll fight to get candidates back on ballot
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- July
- 22
Deveraux Cannick, chairman of the Mount Vernon Democratic City Committee, issued this statement last night about the county Board of Elections ruling that knocked the committee’s four city council candidates off the ballot. Here it is:
Mount Vernon, NY — Unfortunately the Westchester County Board of Elections determined that our candidates should not be on the ballot based on a technicality regarding which candidates should be running for the unexpired term for the city council seat that was vacated by councilwoman Loretta Hottinger even though councilwoman Eileen Justino is the candidate on the Democratic Party petition to replace her.
The Mount Vernon Democratic Party has been and will continue to be the champions for democracy. We believe that the almost three thousand registered democratic Mount Vernon residents that signed our petitions to get these candidates on the ballot as well as the more that one hundred unpaid volunteers who tirelessly worked on behalf of the Democratic candidates have a constitutional right to vote for these candidates.
There are four seats up for the city council and the democratic voters have signed petitions for these four candidates and we will not allow Mount Vernon residents to be denied their voting rights on a technicality. We will use all the resources of the Mount Vernon Democratic Party to make sure that our voters are not disenfranchised. We are confident that justice will prevail; our candidates will be restored to the ballot and that Mount Vernon voters will have the opportunity to vote for the candidates of their choice.
All voters of Mount Vernon, Westchester and indeed New York should be appalled that a technicality would attempt to be used to deny voters the candidates of their choice. Last year these same unpaid volunteers worked tirelessly to bring out over 23,000 votes in the national election for Obama, whom we know would not agree with depriving people the right to vote for the candidates of their choice.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 11:56 am by Hannan Adely.
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The Mt. Venon City Committee are all a bunch of know it all idiots! How come you did not know about the unexpired term? The Republicans, Independents, and Conservatives got it right! Why not the Democrats? The Technicality lies among the Mt. Vernon City Committee.
Cannick states: “All voters…should be appalled that a technicality would attempt to be used to deny voters the candidates of their choice.” Rather, they should be appalled at the ignorance of the City Committee in not knowing how to legally and properly submit petitions. To add insult to injury, he gratuitously throws in Obama’s name to no purpose other than to solicit sympathy for his sophomoric oversight.
I agree with the Mount Vernon Democratic Chairman. The almost 30,000 registered voters should be able to vote for candidates that obtained the minimum amount of legitimate registered Mount Vernon Democratic signatures. How can you say to 3,000 people democrats…”screw you”??? That goes against the basic fundamental principles that this country was founded on.
Reginald Lafayette is the current number two in command of the Mount Vernon Democratic Party. So is he saying that he missed this on the petition or he just did not say anything? Now that’s a real Hmmmm! I’m sure the courts will want to hear all the details Reggie
A technicality is what attorneys used to challenge a candidate’s petition. It is part of the democratic process and in Election Law. Someone needs classes….in Election Law. All the attorneys need to go back to school, Devereaux – the Party Chair, Lyndon – the County Legislator and Helen – the appointed judge. Wow..the incompetence in this town.
This country was founded on the bedrock of agreed upon and accepted law. Follow it.
this country was also founded on fundamental fairness
and courts of equity…the election law in this state
has always been arcain..you cannot disenfranchise
that many people because of a misdesignation on
a petition which is easily corrected..this is not
about embarassing the democrats…this is about
allowing the system to function properly ..a higher
court will order a correction to the petitions
but the board could not do that at that level
@ Consultant – Please explain your explanation above. I would like to know more & are you an election attorney? Are you confident that they will be on the line and will you be saying that on your show
I’m running for County Government and I have found there is very little guidance in developing petitions. Candidates have to design her/his own based on a complicated template. In my opinion the current candidate system is set up for such errors and leads to great politicans being thrown out of elections. I think the Attorney General needs to be consulted.
my opinion is that a technical violation cannot be
cured by the board it has to be cured if at all
in a court..but given the nature of this particular
violation I doubt very seriously that any court would
throw out the petitions of any party committee