The Secretary of the State’s office informed West Hartford Republican Joe Visconti via email Wednesday that his name will appear on the ballot in November.
After not receiving enough support at the Republican convention in May to automatically qualify for the Republican primary, Visconti decided to go the independent route and collected the 7,500 signatures he needed in order to run for governor without the backing of a major party.
“I had no doubt that I was going to qualify,” Visconti said Wednesday.
Visconti will appear on the ballot with Republican Tom Foley and Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. The Secretary of the State’s office is still tallying the petitions from Jonathan Pelto, another third-party candidate who is trying to qualify to run for governor.
The Secretary of the State’s office does not examine signatures for validity. That’s a process conducted at the municipal level by local election officials. The Secretary of the State’s office then tallies the numbers submitted by each town. Once a candidate meets the qualifying threshold of 7,500, a letter is sent to the candidate to inform them that they qualified. The deadline to submit signatures was Aug. 6.
Pelto has struggled with the petitioning process and claims that some local election officials are misapplying the law. He has said signatures are being disqualified for the wrong reasons. He said some were disqualified for not listing a date of birth, which is asked for on the petition form, but is not necessary under the law.
Visconti said he didn’t run into the same problems as Pelto, possibly because he stood outside polling places in towns that were having budget referendums and caught voters as they left. He said the strategy guaranteed those people were registered to vote because they had just voted.
What’s next for Visconti?
“We need to fund our ground game,” Visconti said.
He said they need palm cards and bumper stickers and lawn signs to “litter Connecticut with ‘Visconti for Governor’ campaign materials.”
Visconti said now that he knows he will be on the ballot in November, he expects it will be easier to raise money.
Visconti’s running mate, who also qualified for the ballot, is Chester Frank Harris of Haddam Neck.
