Bert Jean-Louis, a candidate for the County Legislature’s District 13, has gotten the boot from the Democratic primary.
He was the only candidate from the 17 Legislature districts to have his petition invalidated through objections to his signatures.
Ann Marie Kelly, Democratic commissioner for the Rockland County Board of Elections, said today that Jean-Louis had gotten 290 signatures, but 117 were invalidated leaving him short of the required 198.
Kelly said most of the signatures were unacceptable because the signers had put their names on the petitions of other candidates before Jean-Louis’. Others were invalidated because the signers printed their name instead of writing in script or because the signers lived outside the district.
Bert Jean-Louis still holds the Working Families Party line. I haven’t gotten in touch with him yet (cell phone goes right to voice mail) but I’ll update later when I find out what his plans are.
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UPDATE: Just got off the phone with Bert Jean-Louis (it’s Tuesday, at about noon.) Bert said he and his campaign workers are inspecting each challenged petition before deciding his next move.
“If it’s uncalled for, we’ll go for the appeal,” he said.
But no matter what happens with his Democratic petition, Jean-Louis said he’ll continue to run for the seat on the Working Families Party line.
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There are still three candidates for the Democratic primary in that district: Jacques Michel, Yitzy Ullman and Vilair Fonvil.
Most of the people who filed general objections last week didn’t follow up with specific objections. Kelly said that’s not uncommon as many objectors find after they file a general objection that it’s either too time consuming to file specific objections or that there isn’t enough to sustain an objection.
She and Republican Board of Elections Commissioner Joan Silvestri spent the day at the office Saturday going through petitions and catching up on work.
“It was good with no phones ringing,” Kelly said. “We didn’t get overtime for it, but it was a lot of comfort to get it done.”
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