Anthony A. Williams, Democratic Candidate for
Mayor in the 
September 10, 2002, Primary Election
Report of Kathy Fairley, Registrar of Voters, to the Board of Elections and Ethics
July 26, 2002

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July 26, 2002

MEMORANDUM

TO: Kenneth McGhie, General Counsel

SUBJECT: Challenge to Petitions Submitted by Anthony A. Williams, a candidate for the Office of Mayor of the District of Columbia

On July 2, 2002, Anthony A. Williams submitted a nominating petition to appear on the ballot as a candidate in the September 10, 2002 Democratic Party Primary for the office of Mayor of the District of Columbia. That petition was posted for public inspection for 10 days, as required by law, and challenged on July 15, 2002 by Dorothy Brizill and Shaun Snyder, registered voters in the District of Columbia.

My preliminary review of the petition submitted in support of Mr. William's nomination contained 512 pages with a total of 10,102 signatures. Representatives for Anthony A. Williams filed a response to the challenge requesting that 214 of the 512 nominating petition pages be excluded, leaving the nominating petition with a remainder of 298 pages containing 5,862 signatures.

The minimum requirement for a democratic nominee for Mayor of the District of Columbia is 2,000 signatures of District voters who are duly registered and members of the Democratic Party.

Challengers Brizill and Snyder filed challenges to a total of 5,254 signatures, enumerated by line and page number on individual "challenge sheets" filed for each petition page. Petition signatures were challenged pursuant to Title 3 D.C.M.R. § 11607.5 of the Board's regulations on the following grounds:

• The signer is not a duly registered voter;
• The signer is not duly registered in the same party as the candidate;
• The signer, according to the Board's records, is not registered to vote at the address listed on the petition page, and has failed to file to a change of address with the Board within ten days of the challenge;
• The signature is not dated; and
• The circulator is not a duly registered voter at the time of signing.
• Additionally, co-challengers alleged that in a vast number of the challenges the signature on the petition is not that of the registered voter.

My review of the challenges indicates that a total of 3,627 of the 5,254 challenges are valid. This leaves the candidate's nominating petition with 2,235 signatures, 235 signatures more than the 2,000 signatures required for ballot access.