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To begin, Tom entered the race on March 10, many months after
the other Republican candidates. He retained a recognized
political consulting firm in Washington D.C. to assist him
with the many facets of running a major campaign - fundraising,
media communications, voter outreach etc. When it came time
to collect the petition signatures throughout the Fourth Congressional
District, they strongly encouraged Tom to continue to devote
his time and efforts to fund raising and other voter-oriented
events and leave the collection efforts to volunteers and
paid part-time help under the supervision of his newly-hired
campaign staff.
A petition circulator is required to be a registered member
of the same party in which the petitioning candidate is enrolled
at the time the signatures are collected. The bottom
line is that one of the paid petition circulators certified
(in writing) that he was a registered Republican. As it turned
out, he was registered as an unaffiliated voter in Mansfield
(UConn student) and did not register as a Republican in Wilton
until June 7 after he had collected most of his signatures.
Tom learned of this on June 14 from the Norwalk Registrar
of Voters (an ardent supporter of one of Tom's opponents)
who had been very carefully scrutinizing his submitted petitions.
The Registrar did this research and advised Tom that she would
be filing a complaint with the State Elections Enforcement
Commission. Accordingly, Tom was told by the Secretary of
State that all of this circulator's 200+ signatures would
be tossed.
Together, our Easton volunteers and Tom's campaign staff
had collected nearly 2,500 signatures, well over the 1,988
required--with an impressive 82% validation rate--but the
loss of an additional 200 signatures meant we no longer had
sufficient validated signatures to qualify for the primary
ballot.
It was also earlier reported in the media that there was
at least one signature in Norwalk which was reportedly forged
on one of this circulators' petition sheets. But who signed
the name of the wife of the Chairman of the Norwalk Republican
Town Committee and why is not known. Although certainly not
welcomed publicity, this incident would not have been of any
major significance. Disallowances for various reasons are
quite common in signature collection efforts and that is why
extra signatures are collected.
In summary, what was reported in the local and national press
as a very vibrant and promising congressional campaign on
the way to victory in November was suddenly derailed - a real
shame and disappointment, not only for Tom given his tireless
efforts and those of many volunteers in Easton and elsewhere,
but for the citizens in the Fourth Congressional District.
The silver lining is that Tom loves serving the people of
Easton as its First Selectman and will work to see that Republicans
are elected on November 2nd. Please visit our Campaign
2010 page for links to the various websites of Republican
candidates.
Yours truly,
Hugh Barry, Chairman
Easton Republican Town Committee
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