REPUBLICAN ATTORNEY GENERAL HOPEFUL Michael Walsh can appear on September’s primary ballot under a Essex County Superior Court judge’s ruling issued Friday.
The decision, which came from Associate Justice Jeffrey Karp, overrules a State Ballot Law Commission decision to scrub Walsh’s name from the ballot over his submission of allegedly fraudulent nomination signatures.
In the ruling, Karp said that “despite substantial evidence in the record of voter fraud” the commission lacked jurisdiction to consider the complaint from Massachusetts Democratic Party Executive Director Adam Roof alleging that Walsh had submitted fraudulent nomination signatures and did not have the required 10,000 certified signatures to get on the ballot.
Early on in the case, Walsh moved to dismiss Roof’s complaint saying he failed to meet the requirement to serve the objection via certified mail. In its decision, the commission denied Walsh’s motion finding that failure to meet the requirements didn’t hinder Walsh because he still received the objection.
Karp disagreed.
“It is this Courts view that the SBLC’s reasoning is misplaced and that the SBLC erred as a matter of law by failing to dismiss the Objection,” Karp said in the 14-page ruling.
Read more Pot advocate looks to boot marijuana question from ballot
Walsh celebrated the ruling and criticized both the Democratic Party’s complaint and the commission’s decision to strike his name from the ballot.
“Elections are decided at the ballot box not by politicians and appointed bureaucrats. They lost. The voters won. And now we have an election to win,” Walsh said in a statement.
The commission plans to appeal the decision to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, according to a spokesperson for MassDems.
Time is running out to get the ballots ready in time for the September 1 primary. Under federal law, Secretary of State William Galvin must issue primary ballots for this year’s election by July 18.
