Hawkins critical of petition challenge
Syracuse Post-Standard
September 8th, 2008
http://blog.syracuse.com/politicalnotebook/2008/09/hawkins_critical_of_petition_c.html
Howie Hawkins, the Green Populist candidate for Congress in the 25th District, isn't happy about a challenge to his petitions to run for Congress.
Dustin Czarny, a volunteer with Democratic congressional candidate Dan Maffei's campaign, maintains that half of the signatures Hawkins gathered on his nominating petitions are invalid.
Hawkins filed over 6,300 signatures, while 3,500 signatures are required by law to qualify for the ballot.
"To hear Barack Obama tell it, change comes from the bottom up. Apparently Maffei didn't get the message. Maffei doesn't want an independent upstart to even have a chance of coming from the bottom up," Hawkins said.
"Independents have to go out and spend long hours every day for the limited six-week petitioning period to convince thousands of voters to sign their petitions," Hawkins said. "Independent candidates not only have to get three times more signatures, we don't have the patronage-based structures of the old established parties to gather them for us. The major party candidates don't have to work for a single signature. Their party committees do it for them."
If Hawkins' petition survives Czarny's objections, he will be the only independent candidate for Congress in New York State this year. Hawkins, a frequent candidate for office who has never won, and Republican Dale Sweetland are competing with Maffei to fill the seat being vacated by Rep. James Walsh in the 25th Congressional District, which includes Onondaga County.
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