Believe it or not, election season is underway and for those seeking office for the first time, it is not an easy task to get voters to sign a petition to get them on the ballot. Some candidates have agreed to work together during Coronavirius by agreeing not to challenge each others petitions. Unfortunately, in some contests, it’s cutthroat politics as usual.
Chris Fink, Democratic Congressional Candidate in the June 23rd Democratic Primary for NY’s 16th Congressional District, is calling the petition challenges to his and his rivals’ petitions frivolous as well as dangerous to the government workers who have to review the bogus and irresponsible claims. Fink is one of four democratic challengers to Congressman Eliot Engel on June 23. The 16th Congressional district includes –xx
Andom Ghebreghiorgis’ campaign filed objections to Chris Fink’s and two of their opponents’ petitions on March 30th. Chris Fink filed over three times the number of signatures required, and the other two opponents whose petitions Ghebreghiorgis’s campaign objected to are also within that range. What is Ghebreghiorgis thinking when he puts lives at stake to review petitions that are well above the required threshold?
The Chris Fink for Congress campaign honors the importance of ensuring that petitions are free of fraud and that candidates for public office demonstrate the support of the communities they aspire to represent. Since Chris Fink and his two challengers have handily met the signature threshold, it seems that Ghebreghiorgis cares more about disrupting democracy than defending it.
“People associated with Andom’s campaign challenged my campaign petitions along with those of two of our other opponents. They have every right to do so, but a review of the challenges to my petitions, as well as those of the other candidates, shows a clear attempt to frivolously state that 95% of all signatures were illegible. There was clearly no attempt to see if these signers were registered voters, nor was there a review of their signatures by checking them at the board of elections,” Fink said.
Fink also noted: “In the midst of a pandemic, were employees of the BOE required to come in to check the thousands of signatures that have been challenged would unnecessarily put these workers in harm’s way.” He went on: “It is clear that Andom’s staffers did not put in the slightest effort to find out if what they were alleging is true. It appears that Andom’s campaign is engaging in an effort at candidate suppression. This is not how our democratic process should work. The problems with our democracy are never going to be solved by less democracy.”
In addition to Fink and Ghebreghiorgis, Sammy Ravello and Jamaal Bowman, round out the democratic field challenging Engel.
