Candidate Petition Filing Through Thursday

The candidates seeking their party line in the race for Rockland County executive have until Thursday at the close of business to file their petitions. Democratic Board of Elections Commissioner Kristen Stavisky said each candidate is required to have at least 2,000 valid signatures of registered party voters on their petitions. Although candidates can start filing today, she expected most or all of them to wait until Thursday.

The four-way Democratic race for county executive includes David Fried, Dagan Lacorte, Vladimir Leon and Ilan Schoenberger. Ed Day is the sole Republican running. 

Once the petitions are filed, the clock starts ticking for any challenges to petition signatures and the collection process. Candidates and any registered voter have three days from the filing of a petition to submit general objections and then six days from that date to file specific objections.

Leon issued a press release Monday morning claiming that Fried’s campaign was plotting against his.  According to Leon, “the projected plot is to be started using regular individuals to file objections while campaigns and individuals that do not want to see Vladimir Leon to win to stay behind the scene collaborating with helping hands to knock Vladimir’s petition out.”

Fried’s campaign manager Stephen Papas refuted the allegation. He said they are not planning to stop Leon from filing and will look at his and the other candidates’ petitions. 

“We won’t just be looking at Mr. Leon’s (petitions). We’ll be looking at Mr. Schoenberger’s, Mr. Lacorte’s, Mr. Day’s,” said Papas.

He said it is the job of each campaign to make sure all candidates abide by the rules of the Board of Elections and he expects the other campaigns to file Freedom of Information requests to review Fried’s petitions as well. 

In addition to the five county executive hopefuls, Stavisky said there are other races with multiple candidates. Ten candidates are seeking to run for mayor of the Village of Spring Valley and six are vying for two Spring Valley trustee seats.