BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) - Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said he and his campaign "feel good" about their odds of getting an independent line on the November ballot.
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Attorneys for the Brown campaign will appear before the Erie County Board of Elections on Friday to argue why the mayor should be on the November ballot. The Brown campaign filed the petition with the Erie County Board of Elections last week.
Brown is seeking an independent line on the ballot after India Walton defeated Brown in June's democratic primary for mayor. Walton's victory was considered one of the largest political upsets in the country. If Brown won the June primary, he would have virtually guaranteed an unprecedented fifth term as Buffalo mayor. However, Brown refused to end his bid for mayor and is seeking to win using a write-in campaign or, in this case, an independent line.
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The Brown campaign is long past the May 25 deadline to file a petition to get on an independent line. It is unclear what legal argument the Brown campaign will use to get on the ballot. Brown did not want to say yesterday what the argument is.
"We've hired election (lawyers) that are experts in ballot access," Brown said Thursday. "One prominent state election law expert and one prominent national election law expert. One of the things that I've fought for and worked for my entire career is ballot access and making sure everyone who wants to vote can vote."
The Walton campaign did not return our message for comment when we scheduled this story to publish.
The attorneys for Brown will be attending the hearing virtually, according to Erie County Republican Board of Commissioner Ralph Mohr.
Mohr and Democratic Elections Commissioner Jeremy Zellner will rule on the validity of the petition. It only takes one of the two commissioners to rule the petition to be valid but it would take both to rule it invalid. If the petition is ruled invalid, the Brown campaign has three days to appeal the decision by the commissioners.
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When asked about legal precedents which would allow Brown to get on the ballot on an independent line at this point, Mohr acknowledged a time when the Erie County Legislature failed to re-apportion itself one year. He said a federal judge a decade ago allowed the county to provide a time period for an independent nominating petition.
"I don't make much of it," Walton said last week when asked about the Brown campaign's effort to get on the ballot. "We had a primary election. The voters spoke. He chose not to run a campaign and this is what we have."
When asked how his name appearing on the ballot would change her campaign, she said she is keeping her "foot on the gas all the way, anyway".