Reliable political tactic narrowing the field

Sen. Ken Cheuvront, a Phoenix Democrat, was kicked off the ballot for Encanto Justice of the Peace June 17 after a judge ruled he collected petition signatures using the wrong form. The tactic of challenging one’s nominating petitions is a tried and true political tactic to narrow the campaign field.

Sixteen court challenges against legislative, statewide and congressional candidates’ nominating petitions have already spurred at least five people to drop out.

Other cases, including an allegation that Sen. John Huppenthal illegally collected thousands of signatures to qualify as a Republican candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, have been resolved. The court ruled June 17 that it was legal for the Chandler Republican to gather signatures before filing a campaign committee.

The majority of other challenges are awaiting hearings or pending rulings, such as a complaint that Augustus Shaw, a GOP House candidate in District 17, lives in the wrong legislative district.

The legal challenges are a tried and true tactic often used by political parties or rival challengers to narrow the field or potentially take out a strong opponent.

“If your opponent hasn’t followed the (right) legal steps, then they have made themselves vulnerable to legal challenge,” said Sen. Rebecca Rios, a Democrat from Apache Junction who is running for re-election. “Politically speaking, this is a game of sport and you eliminate your opponent as early and quickly as you can.”

Indeed, many of the challenges dealt with questions of facts — the petitioners were not registered voters, were living outside the boundaries of the district or were from other parties — and are therefore more or less easily verifiable.

Some of the petition challenges already have had their desired effect.

Five candidates dropped out of the race soon after their petitions were challenged: Anna Maria Brennan, a Republican who was running for the District 11 Senate seat; Scott Bergren, a Republican candidate in House District 21; Anthony “Grandpa” Goshorn, a Green Party candidate for the House in District 17; John Williamson, a Democrat seeking a House seat in District 8; and Tom Gordon, a Republican gubernatorial candidate.

But other challenges have also been withdrawn after a review of the facts. This was the case in the challenge against Green Party gubernatorial candidate Larry Gist; it turned out he has sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Courts are generally reluctant to remove a candidate, especially when the violations appear to be purely technical in nature.

“Judges look to preserve the will of the voters. They’re not looking to substitute their judgment for the voters’ judgment,” said Republican consultant Constantin Querard, who was involved in the challenge against Brennan.

There are obvious ways to minimize the risks of getting challenged, such as delegating the task of collecting the petitions to trusted aides or family members and personally checking all signatures before submitting them.

Sen. Ron Gould, a Republican from Lake Havasu City, said it also helps when the cushion between what’s needed and what’s submitted is very wide.

Gould submitted 1,118 signatures, 637 more than what was needed to qualify.

“If you need 500 and you turned in 1,000, the odds are they’re not going to be able to disqualify half of your signatures,” Gould said, adding that more signatures means more time wading through them to try and find defective ones.

But like Querard, Gould said courts lean toward allowing challenged candidates to stay on the ballot.

“I think they just figure you can hash it out on the ballot on Election Day,” he said.