Yesterday was the deadline for City Council candidates to turn in their petitions to get on the September Primary Election ballot. Each candidate is required to submit 900 signatures, but they usually turn in a lot more than that in case there are challenges. We heard from three of the challengers (taking on Councilman Alan Gerson) in the District 1 race. Margaret Chin and Pete Gleason’s campaigns both said they submitted about 5-thousand signatures, while Councilman Gerson collected over 7-thousand signatures. PJ Kim made a mini-media event out of his filing late yesterday afternoon. Here’s what he had to say moments before handing in his petitions, containing 5500 signatures, at the city’s Board of Elections office :
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Not so fast Mr. Kim. You may have 5500 signatures but you do not have 5500 VALID signatures, i.e., signatures of district residents.
Anyone can accumulate INVALID signatures.
It is reported that your paid signature-collectors had loads of signatures from the boroughs and upper Manhattan. No good, Sorry.
The other campaigns, who had volunteers from within district and knew their neighbors, had many more VALID signatures.
Remember what Lincoln said about “fooling the people”.
It’s shame most of PJ Kim’s signatures will not be valid! This carpetbagger used non-registered democrats to collect signatures..naughty boy!
What will his boss Ray Cline say??
5190- the actually number of signtures PJ paid for.
It’s also worth noting his address as listed on his petition: 88 Greenwich. That’s not where he was registered as of last year’s Presidential Primary, when he lived on West 77th street. Although he didn’t vote in that election at either address…
People will say whatever makes them feel better for not working as hard. Aside from the incumbent, he got almost 1,000 more than #3 and #4.
Plus, PJ did not need clubs and other candidates to get his signatures for him, nor did he need a fancy barbecue. He was out there, 7 days a week, from 8AM until 10PM meeting voters and listening to their concerns…were YOU?
Enough said. And the “valid rate” will speak for itself.
GO PJ!!!
Probably the most qualified and progressive candidate on the ticket
Exactly more of what NYC needs
Until recently, PJ was a registered Republican. Now he is a Democrat. How convenient.
Would any of his supporters care to comment on that fact?
Or is expediency part of your ethos too?
he interned for a republican in Tennessee when he was 17. he’s volunteered for Democrats in NJ, NY and around the country after college in 2001. I guess for some of you that qualifies as “until recently” bc nothing’s changed for you in 8 years. you guys are desperate and digging pretty deep. i’ll make your lives easier with a little tip so you don’t have to do so much work: i heard he “recently” drew a flattering picture with crayons of President Reagan. In 1985 when he was 6. How expedient!
What evidence do you have that PJ Kim collected invalid signatures?
What evidence do you have that PJ Kim was using “non-registered democrats” to collect signatures?
A neighbor who went to the Board of Elections told me that he saw many signatures outside the district, many more than the other candidates had. Pages and pages, in fact. A few are normal, but not ‘pages and pages’.
If you have the time, I respectfully suggest you go to the Board and check it out to get to the bottom.
Also, “Who is PJ Kim” counted the very accurate, 5190 signatures, yet at the “press conference” 5500 were claimed by the candidate. Who is correct? That is a large margin.
PJ Kim was a registered Republican in New York until 17 months ago.
Oh my god, he was a republican once? Somebody call out the mayor for being a republican once while we’re at it.
I gotta say, recently is 2006. Until then, he was a registered Republican. And not only was he a registered Republican, but a registered Republican living on the Upper West Side (until mid-October of ’08, or what I might call ‘recently’)
Oh, and while he was a Republican (until 2006, during which time the Republican Party got us into Iraq, shredded our Social Safety Net, and waterboarded folks) he campaigned for the rabidly anti-immigration Bill Frist. Frist last ran for office in 2001, a whopping 5 years before PJ saw the light and became a Dem.
Now those are some progressive credentials all of us on the Lower East Side can really get behind!
Rabaker, you were not being quite honest, were you?
Please comment on Post 7:56 above. Is this true?
And, Liam, you belong on the UES with all your Republican friends.
LES to GOP = personna non grata
I’m a registered Democrat. MAN you are thick.
I never said you weren’t a registered Democrat, did I? Nothing of the sort.
I said you belong on the UES with all your Republican friends, (if you think there is nothing wrong with a person expediently switching from Republican to Democrat in order to be elected to office in an overwhelmingly Democratic district).
Didn’t do so well in Reading Comprehension, did you, Liam?
Or is that bike seat putting too much pressure on your brains?
You made the implication.
Did you enjoy reading the follow up report by ed which basically made you look like a fool crying foul, when really the situation you suggested was not reality?
I made absolutely no implication. You made an incorrect inference! No need to apologize. I forgive you right now.
Ed went to the Bd of Elections and saw thousands of signatures for PJ Kim. Such diligence is admirable.
However, with all respect to Ed, he did not cross-check the signatures with the Voter’s Register to see if they were registered Democrats, as the law requires they be.
Maybe you don’t care, but most Dems, most voters, and indeed the Courts would be appalled at having republicans or non-registered voters sign a Democratic Party petition.
The point is: I understand that people who did cross-check have found hundreds and hundreds of Kim’s signatures were not from people legally permitted to sign the petitions. He used kids off of Craig’s List to collect signatures. What do you expect when you employ mercenaries? They get paid for signatures collected, not VALID signatures collected. The other candidates did not pay anyone. They used volunteers who believe in them. Kim had no one willing to volunteer for his campaign. Most of the money for the mercenaries came form out of state, not the council district he wishes to represent. Ever hear of ‘carpetbagging’?
That is why he is being challenged.
Again, the only fool on this site appears continually to be you.
“I took DowntownGuy up on that challenge yesterday. Shuttling between two Elections Board offices on Lower Broadway, I had a look at Pj Kim’s petitions. While it’s true that there were some signatures from outside the district (not allowed), there were certainly not “loads” of them- not enough to disqualify a candidate submitting more than five times the required number of signatures.”
Nuff’ said.
For starters, let’s give the personal insults a rest. It’s just not necessary. Second, it appears the challenges PJ Kim faced have been dropped, so it’s a mute point. The voters will certainly be able to decide for themselves whether any of the machinations surrounding these petitions are relevant. It’s a totally subjective question.