Just call Shirley Seward the candidate that never was—or was she?
Carlisle voters had a choice of two candidates for town clerk when they went to the polls Election Day: Republican incumbent Colleen Crofts or Democratic challenger Seward Seward.
The problem, Ms. Seward said Thursday, is that she had no intention of running—something she said she made clear when she found out her name had been submitted without her permission.
“I told them [Carlisle Democrats], ‘You got me in, get me out,’“she said. “I went on vacation, on a bus trip, and came back to find my name on the ballot. They asked me after my name was in. Now that shouldn’t be legal.”
But it is, said Schoharie County Board of Elections’ Anne Hendrix.
If someone is nominated by a member of their party, as Ms. Seward was, she explained, they don’t need to accept if they want to be on the ballot, but they do need to decline if they don’t.
“You do need to decline if that’s your choice,” she said.
Linda Cross, a member of Carlisle ’s Democratic Committee, said the fact that the caucus fell so late in the political calendar this year is part of the problem.
There was too little time for candidates to decline before the September 28 deadline, she said.
Ms. Cross said she notified Ms. Seward along with a couple of other candidates who didn’t want to run that they needed to submit a signed and notarized statement refusing the nomination, but Ms. Seward was out of town until after the deadline.
“I even called one of the election commissioners,” she said, “but once the deadline’s passed, you just can’t take someone off the ballot. That’s why you have candidates who’ve died still on the ballot.”
Ms. Cross said she ran an ad in the local shopper letting people know Ms. Seward wasn’t interested in serving, but Ms. Seward said the wording, that she was ‘unable to run,’ “made it look like it was my fault. It wasn’t fair to the people who thought I was running, people who voted for me.”
Ms. Cross said she’s sorry for Ms. Seward’s frustration and hopes everyone can learn from the experience; Carlisle Democrats, she said, have learned they need to caucus earlier.
“It’s not east to get elected,” she added, “but it’s not easy to get off the ballot, either.”
Ms. Seward polled 97 votes to Ms. Crofts’ 259. But even if she’d won, she has other plans.
“They’d be in trouble,” she said. “Next week, I go to Florida .”