Board Of Education Challenger Switching From Petitioning To Write-In Candidate

By John Voket

An apparent lack of clarity regarding who may or may not run for or win an interim school board vacancy was clarified Thursday morning by representatives from the Connecticut Secretary of the State’s Office.

The seemingly complex issue is the latest development in a political shell game that finds a Republican challenger who sought a school board seat as a petitioner withdrawing from one slot on the November ballot, to become a write-in candidate against an unopposed Democrat.

That challenger, Republican Donna Monteleone Randle, filed a letter October 15 withdrawing the ballot position she secured as a petitioner with the Independent Party of Newtown committee. On that ballot, the candidate used the name Donna Arlene Monteleone.

Ms Monteleone Randle is among a group of contenders still registered with major parties who came together with several unaffiliated voters to form a slate with the fledgling IPN, a political committee hoping to secure permanent ballot spots as a minor local party.

According to an October 17 release from IPN, Ms Monteleone Randle will seek to qualify as a write-in contender against Democrat Anna Wiedemann under the name Donna A. Monteleone. Ms Wiedemann was endorsed by the Democratic Town Committee to fill a two-year vacancy on the school board, and is currently unopposed.

The idea to mount a challenge to Ms Wiedemann developed traction September 25 when Po Murray, an IPN candidate for the council and the co-founder of the political committee that grew from an education advocacy group called We Care About Newtown (WeCAN), began inquiring about the possibility of a write-in candidate challenging Ms Wiedemann in e-mails to Registrar LeReine Frampton.

Ms Frampton referenced Newtown charter Section 2-30(f) as the jurisdictional rule preventing a registered Republican from winning the Democratic interim seat. That charter provision states: “If a person vacating an elective board or commission shall have been elected as a member of a political party, the vacancy shall be filled by a member of the same political party.”

Ms Frampton’s information was confirmed Wednesday morning by Bernard Liu at the Secretary of the State’s Office. Mr Liu told The Newtown Bee that anyone can be a challenging write-in candidate as long as they properly file their intentions with the state before the October 23 deadline and become qualified.

Mr Liu said, however, that a minority stipulation may dictate that a write-in candidate cannot become elected even if they receive a majority of the votes when their political affiliation violates the charter.

But in an e-mail response to a newspaper query on the matter later Wednesday, Ms Murray wrote, “The information that was provided to [The Bee] from your source at the Secretary of State’s Office is inconsistent with the information provided to us from our legal source at the Secretary of State’s Office.”

Ms Murray said she and Ms Monteleone Randle conferred with another Secretary of State’s representative who said there are “no provisions that would prevent Donna from winning the two-year vacancy term as a write-in Republican for this election.” In an e-mail clarification Thursday, just before the newspaper went to press, Mr Liu explained that according to state Statute 7-192a, town charters cannot change candidacy qualifications.

“So this means that anybody can run for a vacancy on the ballot regardless of party affiliation,” Mr Liu wrote. Ms Frampton said based on her latest information, the outcome of the special election to fill the two-year vacancy may alter the minority representation of the entire school board.

“The outcome of the special election will dictate the party representation for the remainder of the elected school board candidates this November,” Ms Frampton said. “It could determine the party makeup of the minority seats on the board of education going forward.”

Because of Ms Monteleone Randle’s withdrawal from the IPN ballot slot, voters will now be choosing to elect as many as two four-year school board representatives from any party. The Republicans have two candidates, the Democrats have three, and the IPN committee now has two vying for the four-year seats.

Ms Monteleone Randle said in the release she withdrew from the IPN slate to provide voters a choice. “There’s no choice when only one candidate is up for election,” Ms Monteleone Randle said. “The seat for that two-year term is now a two-person race. I have an uphill battle since a voter must remember my name and write my name on the actual ballot. However, I believe it is the right thing to do.”

Ms Murray said the IPN committee intends to fully support their former candidate.

“We respect Donna’s decision to run as a Republican write-in candidate against Anna Wiedemann,” Ms Murray said in the IPN release.

The announcement Monday from the former IPN candidate will require the town clerk and Registrars of Voters to throw out more than 15,000 preprinted ballots, and to make accommodations to redact Ms Monteleone Randle’s name by hand on approximately 1,600 absentee ballots.

A package of computer chips holding candidate information for local electronic ballot scanners will also have to be reprogrammed. The cost for reprinting new ballots and reprogramming the chips will cost in excess of $7,000, and that cost will be covered by the Secretary of the State’s Office this year. According to Town Clerk Debbie Aurelia, the extra time devoted to redacting the absentee ballots will be done by office personnel who will be redirected from other duties.

Those labor cost will not be compensated, Ms Aurelia said. Anyone who has already completed an absentee ballot, and who voted for Ms Monteleone Randle on the IPN line, will have that single vote voided when ballots are counted, Ms Aurelia added.

Ms Monteleone Randle will be qualified as a write-in candidate as soon as local registrars receive validation of her acceptance from the Secretary of the State’s office.