While his Democratic rival in the NYC Comptroller race is opting not to question the validity of his petition signatures, former Governor Eliot Spitzer has to deal with a Republican activist who is formally challenging his 27,000 signatures to get onto the ballot. The Post reports that E. O'Brien Murray, "a former top state GOP official who helped elect Bob Turner to Congress and Democrat Simcha Felder to the state Senate, filed a general objection to Democratic voter signatures collected by Spitzer’s campaign. He has until next Monday to file specific objections."
Murray said to the Post, "Eliot Spitzer doesn’t deserve a free pass after what he put New York through." He says the petitions have many problems. As a petitioner who collected signatures for Spitzer's campaign last week wrote for us, "There are many many hurdles for a legitimate signature to be accepted by the Board of Elections. A person has to legibly fill out the date; their signature; their full printed name, the first line of their address with the words East, West, Avenue, or Street, all written out; city; zip code; and county. This is not as easy as it sounds."
The minimum number of signatures needed is 3,750, and many campaigns overcollect to show the amount of their support as well as extras in case any are invalid. Spitzer's team managed to get 27,000 in just four days, and Martin Connor, a lawyer for his campaign, said, "Anyone can file General Objections without showing a scintilla of substance for the challenge. The Spitzer campaign took great care in the petitioning process and filed far more than the number of valid signatures required by law. There are no worries in the frontrunners' camp about making the ballot. That was last week's concern."
Still, Murray is determined, "Eliot Spitzer has returned to politics the way he left it—with lies, deceit and who knows, possibility illegal and fraudulent activity." We're sure Kenneth Langone and Hank Greenberg are cheering Murray's attempt!
