Bob Wyman for Congress (NY CD-10)

I find it shameful that New York primary candidates are challenging the ballot petitions filed by their opponents. This smells of exploiting COVID-19 for personal benefit. Such exploitation of a crisis is not something that should recommend a candidate to the people. #NY10 1/

In New York, candidates must manually collect hundreds of signatures from registered voters in order to get on the ballot. Normally, a month is allowed to gather those signatures. But, with only two days notice, Gov Cuomo ordered that petitioning must stop half way through. 2/

Gathering signatures was hard, because many voters were afraid to touch pens or the petition's paper or even to speak to candidates approaching them on the street. Curtailing the allowed gathering time made it impossible for some to get enough signatures. 3/

I was particularly impacted by this since I gathered most of my own signatures, unlike others who used paid or volunteer staff to gather theirs. I started a few days late, due to my involvement in rate cases early in the month. I expected to catch up, but then the Gov said STOP!

Normally, one must gather two or three times the number of required signatures so that even if someone combs through your signatures, looking for technical faults, enough "good" signatures will remain to meet the required number. I wasn't able to get 2X what I needed... 5/