Monday, August 2, 2010

Brace Yourselves: The Petition Brawls Are Underway - Celeste Katz - The Daily Politics - NY Daily News

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The sun is shining, the birds are singing and lawyers and candidates are slapping each other silly trying to get their rivals knocked off the ballot.

Another election-year summer, another petition objection season here in good old New York.

Here in the city, Congressional hopeful Kevin Powell spent much of his day in Brooklyn court, battling an effort to knock down the primary petitions he filed in his bid to unseat incumbent Democratic Rep. Ed Towns.

Powell (who has an entire piece of his own here on HuffPo) says he's learned a lot since his last run in 2008 and is running a smart, frugal campaign, but still feels Towns' challenge to his signatures is spurious and undemocratic. He even says his supporters are being bullied and questioned in the middle of the night.

Powell said his case was moved over to the Board of Elections, where they're going through the paperwork line by line (he's personally out campaigning now), and they'll be back in court tomorrow.

"It's very obvious that we have [more] than enough signatures," Powell said.
"It's very obvious to us that they're afraid."

That brought quite a stinging response from Towns spokesman Hank Sheinkopf:

"Unfortunately for him, Mr. Powell is not as good at filing petitions as he is at mistreating women and losing elections. There were so many serious problems with his petitions that our campaign believed we needed to protect the voters from being victims of this possible fraud. If indeed Mr. Powell followed the law, than he has nothing to worry about and will be free to lose again.