Today is the first day to collect signatures for candidates to get on the ballot for the Boston mayoral campaign in the fall. While I was collecting signatures for Felix Arroyo, a fellow who was collecting for Dan Conley was telling people that they could sign more than one candidate’s papers. I told him I didn’t think that was the case but he insisted it was fine.
So, I called City Hall and spoke to two people in the Elections Department both of whom assured me that it’s just one signature per voter. I told him this yet he insisted that they were wrong and continued telling people they could sign more than one sheet.
Finally I pointed out that it says right on the signature sheet, “The undersigned does hereby certify that he or she has not subscribed to any other nomination petitions for said office.”
Didn’t matter he said. I asked him where he was from: Belmont. And I learned that two other people had already told him this formality about Boston elections.
So, Dan Conley, District Attorney for Suffolk County, has a Belmont campaign worker telling Boston voters falsehoods to get them to sign his papers.
And so it begins.
mike_cote says
I was told that you could sign as many forms as you wanted, but only the first one received at the election department would count. Which is why you turn in completed sheets as soon as possible, because if someone foolishly signs more than one sheet, only the first one turned in will count. So you need to build in a margin of signatures that will not count.
Also, it is grossly unfair to non-incumbents that the incumbents can just drop of the signature pages while at work, but a challenger needs to schlep into city hall and deal with parking in order to turn in the pages.
demeter11 says
I’ve collected for the at-large race in which people can have four signatures count.
So, maybe the bird who gets papers to city hall first does get the worm, and maybe it was that he was obnoxious in his insistence that we were wrong, and maybe it was because he doesn’t live in Boston, that was so irritating. But he was knowingly misleading people and that just ain’t right.
paulsimmons says
…the signature gatherer might not have known the difference between State election procedure (where multiple candidate signatures are legally allowed) and municipal elections where it’s first-come-first served.
That said, campaigns should train their signature gathering teams.
Christopher says
I think it’s also confusing. I didn’t realize city elections allowed voters to only sign one. Is that true in the towns too? It didn’t come up when I ran for Town Moderator.
paulsimmons says
n/t
theszak says
What are the appropriate citations, laws, regulations, ordinances, et al ?…
theloquaciousliberal says
Source: http://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/2007%20the%20charter%20draft20%20(final%20draft1%20with%20jumps)_tcm3-16428.pdf (The top of Page 15)
merrimackguy says
and this came up specifically in Lawrence, a voter is technically only able to sign one candidate’s paper. As I understand it this is state law.
However, this is not enforced by the city/town clerks. I’m not certain if they even have a mechanism to do this. I believe they compare signatures to lists, but don’t mark the lists to show that the signature has already been used.
The issue in Lawrence only came up because a candidate for school committee challenged another candidate, and it was easy to check because the required number of signatures (50) was very low.
SomervilleTom says
I know I’m dense about this, but how does a non-resident sign papers for a city position? Why is there a Belmont campaign office for a Boston mayoral election?
theloquaciousliberal says
You’re confusing the story here which is about a resident of Belmont collecting signatures from Boston residents.
SomervilleTom says
n/m