Is it legal for political candidates to campaign in the city’s subway system? It depends which representative of New York City Transit you ask.

On several occasions, and as recently as Wednesday, transit spokesmen have told The New York Sun that politicking is barred in all areas beyond the subway turnstiles. But another spokeswoman, Deirdre Parker, confirmed yesterday that campaigning on subway platforms is permitted – as long as candidates stay off the trains.

She pointed to a long-standing provision buried deep in the agency’s rules of conduct, section 1050.6(c), which says “leafleting or distribution of literature, campaigning, public speaking, or similar activities” are permitted inside the transit system “except when on or within a subway car; an omnibus; [or] any area not generally open to the public.”

A civil-rights attorney and Democratic candidate for public advocate, Norman Siegel, said he agreed with the logic behind the ban on campaigning inside subway trains.

“Once the doors close, the people in the car are a captive audience,” he said.

But the ban does not appear to be enforced stringently. A high school math teacher who is running for mayor on the Education Party line, Seth Blum, said he campaigns in the subway system most mornings.

“I go into the cars, the doors close – dingdong – and I do my spiel,” Mr. Blum said. His minute-long stump speech rails against standardized testing.

On his subterranean campaign trail, Mr. Blum has been stopped by police only once, two weeks ago, when an officer asked the candidate to remove a stick attached to his poster.

Candidates who flout the ban on campaigning in subway cars do not risk incurring any penalties from the board of elections, according to a spokesman for the board, Christopher Riley.

When Mr. Blum was informed yesterday that candidates are barred from campaigning on the trains, however, he apologized to the Sun and said he would stop stumping in the subways.

“I respect the law, and when I know it, I follow it,” he said.

The better-known candidates in this year’s mayoral race have kept their politicking above ground. One Democratic mayoral hopeful, Gifford Miller, has launched a “100 Neighborhoods” tour in which he campaigns at subway stops every morning. But a Miller spokesman, Reggie Johnson, said the City Council speaker sticks to stumping on the street level, because it is “more convenient.”

“That’s obviously where there’s less congestion, where he’s not going to bother commuters,” Mr. Johnson said.

A Libertarian candidate for Brooklyn borough president, Gary Popkin, said, however, that subway platforms provide an ideal location to collect signatures for ballot-access petitions.

“Plenty of sitting ducks,” Mr. Popkin said as he scanned a platform dotted with passengers at the Seventh Avenue subway station in Park Slope yesterday morning.

A registered Democrat and horticultural therapist from nearby Cobble Hill, Margaret Weiss, enthusiastically signed Mr. Popkin’s petition because she supports the Libertarian Party’s opposition to the abuse of eminent domain. Mr. Popkin’s Democratic opponent, incumbent Marty Markowitz, who garnered 76% of the vote in 2001, has endorsed a plan that would seize private property from homeowners in the vicinity of the proposed Nets basketball arena in downtown Brooklyn.

After three hours of canvassing at the station yesterday morning, Mr. Popkin had collected more than 150 signatures. He needs to collect 4,000 by August 23 to qualify for the November ballot. He said he has never been bothered by a police officer since he began canvassing on subway platforms July 12.

At least one candidate who campaigned inside the transit system has been penalized. In 1993, a Socialist Workers’ Party mayoral hopeful, James Rogers, was fined $50 for selling copies of the party’s newspaper, the Militant, while stumping at a subway station in Jamaica, Queens. The state Court of Appeals upheld the fine, ruling that the sale of the newspapers was not incidental to his campaigning, as Mr. Rogers argued, and as a “commercial activity” was prohibited throughout the transit system.