[Updated 2007.04.12 10:00: Added excerpts from and link to article from Hard Beat News.]
[Updated 2007.04.11 22:20: Added link to Board of Elections official Candidates List.]

April 11

In a tantalizingly brief notice, The Politicker observed less than two hours ago:

Mathieu Eugene and Harry Schiffman are the only candidates on the ballot for the April 24 special election in Brooklyn, a Board of Elections spokeswoman told me.

More later when I learn more.

April 12

This morning, HardBeatNews – “Daily Carribean Diaspora News” – carries the story:

The new election was set to be contested by [Mathieu] Eugene, [Harry] Schiffman, Jamaican Wellington Sharpe and two other Haitian candidates, Gina Faustin and Darly Brutus. But Eugene and his side challenged the candidates based on residency, voter registration and eligibility.

While Eugene did not contest the BOE clerk’s report, which placed Schiffman, the lone Jewish candidate on the ballot, he challenged each of Sharpe’s 1,727 signatures. This led to strong objections from Sharpe’s lawyers and testy arguments between the representatives.

Although some commissioners expressed concern that registered voters on Sharpe’s petition were being discounted, the clerk’s report on to Sharpe’s petition was amended from 812 valid signatures to 832, omitting over one hundred of Sharpe’s signatures which his campaign submitted as valid, causing him to fall short of the 1,002 needed to be on the ballot.

This outraged Sharpe representatives who vehemently argued that under the law every signature of registered voters who reside in the District is valid. Rickford Burke, Sharpe’s campaign manager, argued to Commissioners that once the Board has determined that a petition signer is registered to vote in the District, whether they signed the address at which they are registered or another addressed in the District, the signature is valid according to case law. This argument was supported by Steve Richmond, Counsel to the Commission as well as some Commissioners, leading to confusion among the Commission.

The Commission subsequently rejected the clerk’s report. But after realizing that this action automatically placed Sharpe on the ballot, the Commission reversed itself and allowed the clerk’s report as amended to stand, throwing the matter to the Supreme Court for resolution.

Their wording of this last paragraph is interesting. They imply that the Commission ignored their legal Counsel and reversed their decision in order to deny Sharpe a place on the ballot.

This reportage is marred, to my eye, by tagging it with the God-baiting headline “Could Brooklyn’s 40th District Drama End With A Jewish Councilman?“. In a previous article on this issue, they refer to him as “Jewish-born Brooklyn resident, Harry Schiffman.” (They don’t specify the geographic boundaries of “Jewia”.) This morning’s article is also accompanied by the most unflattering photo of candidate Schiffman I’ve seen yet; he looks like someone just woke him up from a long train ride.

Links:

• Board of Elections Candidates List for the April 24th Special Election [PDF]

Related posts:

• Eugene challenged on grounds he refused seat, April 10
• Where’s Eugene?, March 23
• Vote!, February 20
• Landscape and Politics in Brooklyn’s City Council District 40, February 14
• 40th District Forum on Preservation and Development, February 8

While of little interest to those outside Brooklyn’s 40th City Council District, the serial comedo-drama (drami-comedy?) that is our super-special election takes another twist. I heard about this last night at our neighborhood association meeting. It’s been reported in several venues this morning:

The Wellington Sharpe campaign has filed a Request for Judicial Intervention ( RJI ) in the Brooklyn Supreme Court to invalidate Mathieu Eugene’s Nominating Petition. There will be a hearing on the matter on April 12. Sharpe is a candidate in the April 24 th City Council 40th District Special Election.

The Sharpe campaign in a statement insisted that “The 40th District seat became vacant as a result of Eugene’s declination of the office and his refusal to execute his Oath.”
– Residency and Eligibility in the 40th, Room Eight

It would be morally satisfying to see Eugene go down in this way. But NYC election politics has nothing to do with justice, and my cynicism for politics is surpassed only by Eugene’s.

The section of law cited in the Request reads, in part:

Every office shall be vacant upon the happening of one of the following events before the expiration of the term thereof:
… His refusal or neglect to file his official oath or undertaking, if one is required, before or within thirty days after the commencement of the term of office for which he is chosen.

Eugene himself, the putative winner of the first special election, requested the second special election just so he wouldn’t have to prove he lived in the district he was elected to represent at the time he was elected. But again, a decision on this Request will probably hinge on the timing of Eugene’s “refusal,” which came after the Board of Elections certified his win, but before he was sworn in. Of course, he refused to be sworn in, because that would have required proof of residence.

Got it?

Sharpe is another carpet-bagger. He also didn’t live in the district when he began campaigning for the first special election. By apparently moving in before the date of the first previous special election, he seems to demonstrate at least some basic competencies Eugene lacks: the ability to read a calendar, and to know what day it is.

Petition challenges will also be heard by a judge this Thursday. Hopefully, that evening we’ll know who we can vote for in two weeks on April 24. Again.

Related posts:

• Where’s Eugene?, March 23
• Vote!, February 20
• Landscape and Politics in Brooklyn’s City Council District 40, February 14
• 40th District Forum on Preservation and Development, February 8