Posting Error Dooms Challenge to Mayor’s Bid To Appear on Independence Line
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
A former official of the Independence Party who is challenging Mayor Bloomberg’s bid for the party’s ballot line made a fatal error while filing his objection, the Board of Elections determined yesterday.
The former party official, Michael Zumbluskas, sent his objection to Mr. Bloomberg via priority mail, but election law requires that objections be delivered by certified mail. Mr. Zumbluskas has charged that Mr. Bloomberg’s Independence Party petitions contained hundreds of forged signatures from voters and witnesses.
“I made a mistake,” Mr. Zumbluskas said during the board’s hearing yesterday, which voided his objection owing to the posting error. “It resulted from me getting to the post office late. They had one counter open,” Mr. Zumbluskas told The New York Sun after the hearing. “I was standing in line for 40 minutes and I couldn’t get it certified.”
Mr. Zumbluskas shrugged off the defeat and said he plans to continue his fight in court. A Board of Elections clerk found that 439 of Mr. Bloomberg’s 4,839 signatures were invalid for technical reasons, and Mr. Zumbluskas said he has filed a lawsuit charging that there are at least 513 additional signatures that should be voided because of fraud. To appear on the Independence Party’s ballot line, Mr. Bloomberg needs approximately 3,900 valid petition signatures.
Also at yesterday’s hearing, the Board of Elections ruled Mr. Bloomberg’s Republican challenger, Thomas Ognibene, off the primary ballot. On Tuesday, a report issued by a Board of Elections clerk said 2,379 of Mr. Ognibene’s petition signatures were invalid, bringing his total down to 5,737 – well below the 7,500 threshold required for a Republican to appear on a primary ballot. Yesterday, a board review of nearly 450 signatures Mr. Ognibene maintained were legitimate determined that 111 of the invalidated petitions should be reinstated, bringing Mr. Ognibene’s total to 5,848.
That determination, Mr. Ognibene said, would aid his efforts to be restored to the ballot by a federal judge. The candidate has pledged to take his case to court, intending to argue that his inability to force a GOP primary results from unconstitutional ballot-access laws that place an undue burden on city Republicans.
