The coronavirus has not only disrupted primary schedules but is also making it more difficult for candidates to collect signatures to appear on the ballot thanks to social distancing and stay-at-home orders.
Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has served in Congress since 1976, has so far not collected enough signatures to make the primary ballot to face off against his upstart challenger, Rep. Joe Kennedy. Markey, 73, needs at least 3,000 more signatures from registered Democrats or unenrolled voters before the early May deadline.
Under normal circumstances, getting that many signatures would not be a problem, but the state’s stay-at-home orders will not allow campaign field workers to go door to door to collect them for safety reasons during the coronavirus crisis.
Kennedy, on the other hand, does not need to worry about his petition signatures, as he has already collected 15,000, which his campaign sent in to be certified.
New York primary candidates were in the middle of collecting signatures when the coronavirus slammed their state and made the New York City metropolitan region the epicenter of the breakout, so state officials ultimately altered the deadlines and number of signatures required.
Yet even before the statewide stay-at-home order, signature collection workers had their work cut out for them.
“It made it very difficult because people wouldn’t answer the doors. New York state, thankfully, dramatically reduced the number of signatures that were necessary to get on the ballot,” Erie County Executive Mark Polancarz told the Washington Examiner on a National Association of Counties press call.
“If they had not done that, I don’t know many candidates that would have been able to get on the ballot … The last thing anybody wants is a stranger showing up at their door, asking for anything, nevertheless a signature to get on the ballot,” he added.
The New York state Republican Party told the Washington Examiner that it made a lot of changes to its own strategy to collect signatures.
“Gov. Cuomo drastically shortened the petition period and changed the threshold for ballot access at the beginning of the outbreak in March, something we supported for public safety. Fortunately, we mobilized quickly and were able to qualify all our candidates,” New York state Republican Party communications director Jessica Proud said.
In New Jersey, petitions were due on March 30. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy issued an executive order that allowed for the collection of petition signatures via electronic means and the submission of petitions via electronic portal. The order also removed the notarization requirement.
