Ben Franklin Club gets all judicial delegates; Unity club gets none

The use of white out on a petition for Democratic judicial delegate and alternative nominees has cost the Unity Democratic Club a slate of 18 candidates in the upcoming June 27 primary. And that is why the Ben Franklin Reform Democratic Club will grab all the delegate seats in the 81st Assembly District at the judicial nominating convention.

The Ben Franklin Reform Democratic Club sent out a letter last week to Democrats explaining why the upcoming primary ballot does not include delegates and alternates for those seats. The Judicial Convention slate put up by Ramdat Singh and Abigail Martin of the Unity club originally included Jack Marth and various other candidates for delegate and alternates. Their names were taken off the ballot by the city Board of Elections following an objection from the Ben Franklin Club.

The judicial nominating convention is held by delegates throughout the state prior to a general election where they vote to nominate judges for the state supreme court. The nominees then appear on voter ballots during the general election.

The challenge of the slate was not due to any one of the individual signatures, the letter explained, but rather to the petition as a whole.

“The reason for that challenge was that alterations were made with ‘white out’ correction fluid on all of the nearly 250 petition sheets,” the letter explained, “and most were made after the signatures were collected. Making such changes prior to the submission of the petitions alters the signed petitions, which are equivalent to sworn affidavits. The change on each sheet (the correction of an address) was not a mere technical violation.”

During the April 28 hearings on the June 27 primary, the challenge to the petition was discussed by the BOE commissioners, attorney and objector Stanley Schlein and challenge appealer and Unity Democratic Club member Lewis Kaminsky.

A BOE member explained how the petitions submitted to the board had a layer of white out on top of the house number that was written and printed next to Marth’s full address.

The crux of the argument was that the white out was an improper alteration since it was not initialed on each sheet by the signatory or their contact person. Additionally, there was no affidavit submitted by Marth that explained whether the petitions were circulated before or after the whiteout.

The board’s voter registration database showed that there was no Jack Marth, only a John Marth registered to his address. Because of that Marth could not be linked in their database and appeared on the enrollment issues report.

They commissioners said they received a statement from Singh admitting that the alteration to the address was made after the petitions were filed with the board. It was deemed that the alteration could invalidate not only Marth’s candidacy but also the entire slate, including the alternates.

“How do you spell submission of a false and tampered document?” Schlein said at the hearing. “This is a borderline crime which should be referred to the district attorney. But putting that issue aside since we’re here in a civil context right now, it requires the invalidation of the sheets that were tampered with.”

Schlein handed out pictures of Singh and Martin with petitions that allegedly showed signatures on the petitions without any white out applied.

Kaminsky told the board that he made the corrections before signatures were applied to the sheets that he witnessed, but could not speak to other petition sheets. He also argued that the other 17 candidates should not be tainted by the alteration regarding Marth.

Ultimately, the decision was made by the board that the candidates would not appear on the slate.

The slate had received 1,100 signatures and canvassed in every neighborhood of Assembly District 81. The Unity Democratic Club is aware of who applied the white out but did not provide a name.