The Independent View: NY 43rd Special Election Candidates

Thanks to Richard Winger of Ballot Access news for this post.

New York is holding a special election on May 5 to fill the vacancy in the Assembly, 43rd district, an overlapping Flatbush and Crown Heights-based seat. In New York special elections, party committees choose nominees.

The 43rd Assembly District election was due to the resignation of Assemblyman Karim Camara, in order to join Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration, to lead faith-based outreach programs.

On March 1, the Democratic Kings County Committee members who live in the 43rd district nominated Guillermo Philpotts. However, he failed to submit his Certificate of Nomination by the March 2 deadline. So there will be no candidate on the Democrats ballot line.

As a result, it is likely that this overwhelmingly Democratic district will have nominees from these parties on the ballot:

The candidates are from the following parties: Republican, Conservative, Working Families, Independence, and a single independent.

The candidate of the Independence Party will be Shirley Patterson, who is a Democrat and who had sought the Democratic nomination.

The candidate of the Working Families Party will be Diane Richardson, another Democrat who had tried and failed to get the Democratic nomination.

These two are considered the front-runners.

The candidate for the Republican and Conservative Parties is Menachem Raitport.

The independent candidate is Geoffrey Davis, whose ballot label is “Love Yourself.” The deadline for independent petitions is March 4, so conceivably there could be other independent candidates.

A newspaper story about the race indicated Diane Richardson will be on the Working Families and Green Party line.

She will not be on the Green Party line. When she accepted the Working Families Party line she violated Green Party of New York rules which does not permit “cross endorsements” of candidates running on the duopoly line or parties which cross endorse those parties. Therefore there will be no Green candidate. The Green Party simply did not file the Authorization which invalidates the Nomination and Acceptance.

Basically Local Green Party officers saw the filed Working Families Party paperwork and simply didn’t file the Authorization so she doesn’t get the Green line.