Council Candidate to Challenge Removal from Primary Ballot
Kat Brezler, a Democratic candidate for the White Plains Common Council, has announced that on May 22 she will appeal a court decision to remove her name from the party’s ballot line for the June primary election.
The decision comes after a judge ruled to invalidate signatures based on them not matching voter registration cards, some of which were from the 1970’s, according to the Brezler campaign. Signatures ruled invalid included those from women who had remarried; a voter afflicted with Parkinson’s disease and newly registered voters, according to the campaign.
As of last week the campaign did not know which court they would file the challenge with.
Brezler is seeking to face off against three candidates endorsed by the White Plains Democratic City Committee in February – incumbent Councilwoman Nadine Hunt-Robinson, who was first elected to the Council in 2014, as well as Victoria Presser and Jennifer Puja.
“How many disenfranchised voters are too many? My answer is one is too many. Knocking good signatures off a petition is voter suppression,” Brezler said recently. “We need to stop these dirty tricks and let the voters decide who they want to elect.”
Brezler’s campaign said it collected 1,175 signatures of which only 696 were necessary to qualify for the ballot. The Board of Elections validated 780 of the signatures.
“We’re fighting for an appeal because voters should decide if we’re going to expand low income and affordable housing in White Plains, not a few entrenched local political operatives,” Brezler said. “We know we need to get big money out of politics, it infects every level of our system.”
