SD-3: Jimmy Dahroug Petitions Validated
In Brooklyn I am used to the period of petition posturing, where each candidate compares the size of their petitions and challenges the validity of the other's petitions while screaming foul over any challenge to their petitions. It is all part of the game. This election is the first time I have observed the process taking place elsewhere (though I knew it happend) partly because some of the posturing has taken place here on DG. There has been considerable discussion over the 1400 signatures collected by Jimmy Dahroug vs. the 3000 signatures collected by Brian Foley in a race that requires 1000 signatures. The assumption has been that 3000 signatures was unchallengable while 1400 was going to be challenged and Dahroug would get kicked off the ballot because he hadn't collected enough signatures to cover his petitioning ass.
I made two points in this whole discussion. First: neither number is all that impressive to me since I know people who, using petitioning as a chance to meet the voters and get their name out, collect 5000 door-to-door, unchallengable signatures in a race that only requires 1000. Neither Jimmy nor Brian have much to brag about by Brooklyn standards.
Second: there are two methods to collect signatures. By all accounts Jimmy Dahroug took the slow and sure approach where you go door-to-door with a walk list of registered Democrats. The main advantage to this approach is you know for certain that each and every signature you get is from a registered voter in your district. If you do this, then you don't NEED overkill because you know that first 1000 sigatures cover it and 400 extra is ample to cover your ass. It still isn't something to brag about, but it is a valid petitioning strategy. Also by all accounts Brian Foley took the second approach to petitioning which is to hire a bunch of people who don't really care about the election who stand on corners or outside stores or whatever and collect signatures from anyone willing to stop. This is much faster but has a much higher rate of invalid signatures and you don't have the advantage of being able to check the signatures as you go along. With this second strategy you can claim overkill but you need it because a substantial number of your signatures will be invalid. Looked at this way, 1400 careful signatures collected slowly and carefully can be considered the equivalent of 3000 signatures collected the quick and dirty way with a higher error rate. At least that would be my estimate having done the slow, painful way every year since 2004.
So, if Jimmy Dahroug really DID collect his signatures carefully, those who predicted he will get kicked off the ballot should know better. I had confidence his signatures would be validated and he would remain on the ballot. Which is what has happened. From Jimmy's campaign:
Yesterday State Senate Candidate Jimmy Dahroug's petitions were declared valid in a unanimous decision by Suffolk County Board of Elections Commissioners.
"We knew our petitions were valid from the beginning and we are pleased that the Commissioners have unanimously confirmed it," said Dahroug.
Dahroug stated "we look forward to resuming a spirited campaign in the interest of the voters."
No surprise if he did the petitioning right...which I guess he did. Nothing to brag about, but certainly a decent job of it.
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election 2008 | State Senate | Jimmy Dahroug
"very well trained"
Submitted by Bouldin on 25 July 2008 - 8:54am.
I keep on seeing this bullshit about those hyper-excellent petitioners, and it's true, because they all seem to be friends of mine from New York City. The bullshit part is the one about highly trained. Gathering petition signatures requires mainly the arcane skill of successfully using a ballpoint pen. Everything else someone needs to know can be explained, literally, in ten minutes.
And while we're on the subject, I've now been told repeatedly that Jimmy's signatures were completely unassailable due to the sterling, upstanding nature in which they were collected. So it's quite amusing to me that the BoE threw out 243 of his signatures immediately, leaving him with a cushion of 165, which can now be challenged in court.
Unassailable
Submitted by mole333 on 25 July 2008 - 11:25am.
Notice, by the way, I did say in the diary IF Dahroug did it the right way, 1400 should be enough.
But even if you go door to door and confirm each and every signature with a walk list (the skills beyond the ballpoint pen) you will still lose some because if someone signs two petitions for the same position, only the first one stands. You also sometimes get someone else in the home signing who turns out to live elsewhere or something like that.
Which is, of course, why people get 3-5 times the number needed, mainly to intimidate people from challenging. Because, as you pointed out, even if all your signatures are perfect, a challenge will still cost you money.
Coupla points
Submitted by Bouldin on 25 July 2008 - 9:21am.
You write, based in part presumably on the disparaging commentary by Jimmy's online foot soldiers, that Foley's signatures were gathered by hired drones with no stake in the election. That's simply not true. Brian's petitions were carried, inter alia, by members of his local party committee, people who actually live in the district and weren't part of a DFNYC field trip. That's probably why they got more signatures, because Foley's people actually know the local community. And despite what you've been told, they went door to door as well. There's a flood of dishonesty on this subject, and I'm not at all surprised by it.
Second, Jimmy's press release is false: the board did not validate his signatures. They accepted 1165 of 1408 of those signatures, throwing out 243 immediately. So that's sixty percent of his cushion gone right there, and he'll need to defend the remainder in court. Which makes what I've been told was a conscious decision that the campaign had better things to do than go around actually talking to primary voters and getting their support an even more stupid decision. The money and time that they saved by not talking to voters, they're now going to have to expend in a courtroom. That's borderline campaign malpractice.
Michael has said all this as well as anyone can!
Submitted by politics64 on 25 July 2008 - 10:03pm.
Jimmy has been twisting and lying about his opponents from day one, he is proving that once again with this meme about Foley using paid gatherers. Mole and Dan's spin on the highly trained and carefully crafted gatherers is truly a joke. Jimmy had a tiny crew, no strngth in regard to a grassroots campaign. The petitions were not validated, 243 were tossed out of hand and with only a 165 cushion and 263 challenges left for the courts to decide I will tell Dahroug supporters not to be poping the champaign corks yet! Even if Jimmy survives the challenge, he will be slithering into the September primary with the shame of barely meeting the minimum requirements to qualify, an 83k bankbook 15k of which is loans that can.t be spent. He will lose decisively in September and can only achieve redirecting Foley campaign focus away from Trunzo for the next six weeks. But why not, it always was and has been all about Jimmy anyway!
Looking closer
Foley actually did quite a bit of door-to-door petitioning. Reports I get say that once he got the 1,000 required signatures his campaign decided to "inflate the numbers" by sending paid people out to shopping centers.
Here in NYC, especially in the more densely populated areas, and Democrats make up the overwhelming majority of voters, we're used to getting large numbers of signatures quickly. Out in the boonies, where the houses are separated by lawns and there are more Republicans than Democrats, it takes a lot more time. As a result, Jimmy Dahroug's 1,400 signatures, while pretty meager by NYC standards, are actually quite good. (BTW, I believe he had even fewer signatures in 2006, though I'm not certain on this point -- I'm checking sources.) Foley's 3,000+ are, of course, substantial by the standards "out there," but not surprising considering the help he's getting from the DSCC.
Finally, Jimmy's petitioners were almost exclusively highly experienced and very well trained, making it more difficult to invalidate the signatures.