You are reading

More Than a Dozen Queens Council Candidates Seek to Cancel Petitioning Due to COVID

Election envelopes with face masks Photo: Unsplash @tiffanytertipes

Feb. 1, 2021 By Christina Santucci

More than two dozen political candidates from Queens say that gathering signatures to get on the ballot is too dangerous during the pandemic and want city and state officials to suspend the requirement.

The group penned a letter Jan. 27 that was sent to the governor, the mayor and other Democratic leaders calling on them to cancel petitioning requirements needed for candidates to get on the ballot.

The letter was signed by more than 100 candidates running for office in the city as well as grassroots advocacy groups.

“Collecting signatures for a successful designating petition creates an unacceptable risk of exposure to COVID-19 for candidates, their staff and volunteers, and political club members through what are essentially hundreds of thousands of mandated, non-socially distanced interactions,” the letter reads.

The letter says that the signature requirement needs to be cancelled to ensure public safety.

“Under normal circumstances, we would not advocate for such a radical change as doing away with petitioning; collecting valid signatures for designating petitions is an important part of protecting the integrity of our elections,” the letter reads.

The letter was sent a day before the state moved to lower the number of required signatures, but those behind the #SafetyoverSignatures push say it’s still not enough.

“Exposure is exposure is exposure,” said Erica Vladimer, who helped bring the candidates together to sign the letter. “What the legislature passed and the governor signed still requires people to put themselves and anyone they come in contact with at risk.”

A bill signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo Thursday has reduced the number of signatures required by 70 percent.

The number of signatures required to get on the ballot varies by office but is less for local races. Candidates for City Council now need 270 signatures.

The bill also adjusted the political calendar so that gathering signatures on designating petitions begins March 2 – instead of Feb. 23 – and petition filing will take place from March 22 to 25 instead of March 29 to April 1.

Organizers of the push to cancel signature requirements said their letter had 260 supporters when it was sent Wednesday. An estimated 350 individuals and organizations had signed onto the request as of Sunday, Vladimir said.

Among the signatories of the letter are Council Member Jimmy Van Brammer, who is running for Queens borough president, and western Queens Council candidates Tiffany Cabán, Evie Hantzopoulos, Jaslin Kaur, Shekar Krishnan, Alfonzo Quiroz, and Carolyn Tran.

“With hundreds of candidates collecting thousands of signatures, it’s a contact tracing nightmare that puts the public at high risk at a time when public health experts are telling us to stay home. The only responsible thing to do is cancel petitioning,” Van Bramer said in a statement Thursday.

Candidates Want to Cancel Petitioning by Queens Post on Scribd

email the author: news@queenspost.com
No comments yet

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Hate Crimes Task Force investigating bomb threats against Mamdani: NYPD

The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force launched a probe into multiple death threats made against Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani after his district office at 24-08 32nd St. in Astoria received four expletive-filled phone voicemails, on various dates, making threatening anti-Muslim statements by an unknown individual, including a threat to blow up his car.

The calls were made from an untraceable number and labeled the mayoral candidate a “terrorist who is not welcome in New York or America” in a message phoned in on Wednesday morning.

Seven teens indicted for attempted murder in brutal Kissena Park gang attack on two girls: DA

A Queens grand jury indicted seven teenagers for attempted murder, gang assault, robbery, and other crimes for an attack on two girls inside Kissena Park in Flushing in early May.

The defendants, who are all 17 years old, were variously arraigned in Queens Supreme Court between June 4 and Wednesday in two separate 25-count indictments with two counts of attempted murder in the second degree. If convicted, they face up to 25 years in prison.

Queens Defenders founder charged with stealing nonprofit funds as second scandal unfolds

The founder of the Queens Defenders and her husband have lawyered up after they were indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the non-profit organization.

Former Queens Defenders executive director Lori Zeno, 64, surrendered Wednesday at the Brooklyn federal courthouse. Zeno was arraigned on an indictment charging her and Rashad Ruhani, 55, with wire fraud conspiracy, theft, money laundering conspiracy and other crimes.

Krishnan leads push to end city contracts with convicted landscaping company owner

Jun. 18, 2025 By Czarinna Andres

A coalition of elected officials and labor leaders is calling on the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to immediately terminate all contracts with Griffin’s Landscaping, a city contractor whose owner, Glenn Griffin, was recently sentenced to two years in federal prison for bribery and illegal dumping as part of a $2.4 million environmental crime scheme.