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Borough President Markowitz locked up a third-term in a Manhattan board room on Tuesday afternoon as the Board of Elections kicked the Beep’s Democratic challenger off the ballot.
The 10-member Elections commission unanimously ruled that political newcomer Eugene Myrick had not collected the required 4,000 signatures.
Myrick had handed in more than 10,000 John Hancocks, but the vast majority were ruled invalid because the signers were either not registered voters or did not live in Brooklyn (or both!).
In the end, the commissioners credited him with just 2,637 valid signatures.
“There is nothing we can do to help you, sir,” said Board of Elections President Frederic Umane.
Myrick accepted the decision with resignation.
“If I’m off, people don’t have a choice,” he said. “What kind of a democracy is that?”
Myrick reserved choice words for Markowitz’s election lawyer, former state Sen. Marty Connor, who spent nearly three decades in Albany.
“If anyone knows how to get you off a ballot, it’s him,” Myrick said. “Here I am, a first-time candidate. I don’t know the rules and I’m going up against a guy who wrote the rules.”
Last week, Connor said he had leveled the challenge against Myrick solely to protect the “integrity” of the balloting process.
After the Tuesday ruling, Connor was matter-of-fact: “He didn’t have enough signatures,” he said.
Officially, Markowitz still has to win re-election in the November general election, but he faces only token opposition from Republican Marc D’Ottavio.
©2009 Community Newspaper Group
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