Middletown Democratic registrar refers primary petition signatures to SEEC in 33rd House District challenge.
Middletown Democratic registrar of voters Patricia Alston has referred primary petition signatures she deemed possible forgeries to the State Elections Enforcement Commission. The signatures appeared on petitions submitted by Reverend Robert Kyle Hoggard’s campaign. Hoggard is seeking to challenge incumbent Democrat Brandon Chafee.
Hoggard needs 298 valid signatures from registered Democrats residing in the 33rd House District. According to his Facebook page, Hoggard submitted more than 400. Local Democrats have been collecting affidavits and statements from purported signatories casting doubt on the petitions. Mike Fallon, head of Middletown’s Democratic town committee, released a statement Friday and described the petitions as including “multiple voters who stated that they did not sign a primary petition for the candidacy of Robert Kyle Hoggard and that the signature listed on the documents turned into the registrar’s office is fraudulent.”
Hoggard responded to an inquiry by Daily Ructions with his own statement:
| Tactics like these dissuade people from wanting to run for office. There’s a political class that does everything in its power to try to dissuade voters from wanting to serve their communities and cancel this election. There’s nothing this political class can do to dissuade me from wanting to run where I was born and raised. I am committed to serving the great people of Middletown, and there’s nothing this political process can throw at me or do to change this. I am committed to repealing the car tax, lowering the cost of childcare, and changing our dysfunctional education system. |
The process of collecting signatures for a primary challenge is almost always more difficult than a campaign anticipates. Connecticut is the state with the laws most hostile to ballot access. It is not by happenstance that those laws endure. The establishment of each political party fears its primary voters more than it does the opposition party.
Hoggard is not expected to reach the 298 verified signatures for an August primary.
Published June 14, 2024.