2000 Doors down, 20,000 to go.

In this episode Nick walks through the process of petitioning on paper and in practice. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Welcome back to Town Board. I'm Nick Hunter, and this
is the podcast where I documentmy journey running for local
office. When we last ended, Iwas just delegated as a town
board candidate on theDemocratic ticket for the town
of Webster and today we're gonnapick right up where we left off
petitions signatures andknocking on more doors than I

(00:54):
ever thought possible. So aquick civics lesson because I
think it's important to take astep back and talk about what
the heck is the town board. Sothe town board is a group of
individuals.
In Webster, it's a five memberteam that passes the town
budget. That's roads, parks,snowplows, the works. Rights are

(01:15):
amends local laws, so thinkabout zoning changes, noise
ordinances, short term rentals,things like that. And they
provide oversight for the towndepartments and the supervisor
making sure money and prioritiesline up with what the residents
need. In short, they set thedirection and keep the engine
running.
Is it boring? Maybe, but it'svital. Alright, so that's the

(01:39):
civics lesson. Let's move on.Petitioning.
Let's talk about the rules. Toappear on the Democratic primary
ballot in Webster, I would need500 ballot signatures from
enrolled Democrats living intown, and we had roughly four
weeks to collect the signatures.So let's talk about the strategy
a little bit. Unfortunately,it's not as easy as just

(02:02):
gathering the signatures andsubmitting them. Once we get our
signatures and we submit them tothe Board of Elections, there's
a challenge process.
So the other party can pull yoursignatures, take a look at every
single one, and inevitably youmight find some signatures that
you can't read, addresses thatmight be wrong, or that person

(02:22):
that promised that they wereregistered but they actually
weren't. And those signaturescan actually get kicked off of
your petitions. And in thatcase, you could potentially lose
an entire page. In my case,that's 15 signatures. And that
can actually take a candidateoff of the ballot.
So to prevent that, we set apretty hefty goal of collecting

(02:44):
a thousand signatures.Thankfully, this wasn't a
venture I was taking on my own.As I previously mentioned,
there's a couple of othercandidates running in Webster,
and they were also collectingsignatures for the petitions. So
roughly, we were looking atcollecting about 250 signatures
apiece in a perfect world.Petitioning can be pretty

(03:06):
grueling work.
Picture this. It's 6PM, 14degrees out, my stapled walk
sheets flapping in the wind, andme trying to fish a pen out of
my pocket with my gloves on. Andagain, nobody comes to the door
and this is the tenth door. Butinevitably, I go to the next one

(03:32):
and somebody would open thedoor, smile, and say, man, thank
you so much for running. Wereally need good people, and
hope would be restored.
And that is the emotional whacka mole that is petitioning. In
the end, I roughly had a successrate of about twenty percent,
meaning I would get somebody toanswer the door about every

(03:55):
fifth door. And in that, it wasabout eighty percent success
rate in getting a signature, butthat means that you really need
to be prepared to knock on a lotof doors, and I was. Fast
forward to filing day, we endedup with about 625 signatures in
hand. Not quite our goal, butover the requirement.

(04:17):
We filed, the other party didnot challenge, and the Board of
Elections stamped them. And justlike that, my name was locked in
for the Democratic primary. Nowit's official. Because I like
extra credit or maybe just pain,I also tried to create an
independent ballot line calledthe clear path line. This is a

(04:41):
part of a strategy in politicsthat involves getting another
place for your name on theballot at the end of the day.
The idea is is that whensomebody goes to vote, the more
often your name shows up on theballot, the more likely is that
they're gonna vote for you. Nowthe independent line has

(05:02):
different rules, different math.Instead of 500 Democrats, I'd
need about a 80 signatures fromany registered voter, but they
couldn't have signed thepetition previously. And again,
I had another about four weekwindow. Spoilers, I didn't make
it.
But here's why it's still a win.I knocked down over 2,000 doors

(05:26):
in that four week period for theindependent line, and I
collected over 300 signaturesmyself. I gained an immense
amount of insight from a wholelot of residents in Webster and
I learned a lot. But this wasn'ta wholly selfish adventure.
Remember, was running along withother candidates And

(05:46):
specifically, when it comes tothe independent line, I was
working alongside someincredible judicial candidates
running under their ownintegrity line.
And that includes Darius Lindand David Seguenza for New York
Supreme Court, Tanya Edinger forMonroe County Family Court
Judge, and Brittany Bonanno fortown justice in Webster who's

(06:07):
running alongside of myself. AndI will say my signatures help
get them across the line, whichis a big win for us in general,
Not to mention how much Ilearned from the residents of
Webster. It was a win all theway around. Where does that
leave us? I'm officially on theDemocratic primary ballot.

(06:28):
Mission accomplished. Theindependent line? We'll chalk
that up to field research,thicker skin, and a couple of
thousand new neighbors who knowmy face. In the next episode,
we'll dive into the issues, howI'm prioritizing them, how
residents are reshaping myplatform, and the balance
between ambition andpracticality when you're the new

(06:49):
kid at the political table. Ifyou learned something or you've
ever stood up on your own porchwondering why politics feels so
distant, do me a favor.
Share this episode with aneighbor. And if you're local,
hit hunter for webster.com andget involved. I may have 2,000

(07:10):
doors down, but there's 20,000more to go. I'm Nick Hunter.
This is TownBoard.
Thanks for listening, and I'llsee you on the next doorstep.