Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has failed to get enough valid signatures to make Michigan’s presidential primary ballot after a campaign oversight left him rushing to submit more than 11,000 names in order to appear before voters in 2020.
Patrick announced his presidential bid just days after Michigan officials were required to issue lists of potential candidates in November, leaving his nascent campaign in need of 11,345 signatures by Dec. 13 to petition for a spot on the ballot.
Patrick’s campaign submitted 13,777 signatures by the mid-month deadline.
But a review of the signatures by the Michigan State Department ended up discounting more than 5,000 of them due to a host of errors — from incomplete addresses to incorrect dates — leaving Patrick 2,685 names short of what he needed to qualify, according to a report Monday by the Michigan secretary of state.
The report said the estimated number of valid signatures, 8,660, was “substantially less than the minimum required to be eligible for certification to the ballot.”
The Michigan Board of State Canvassers will meet Friday to consider Patrick’s petition.
Patrick’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The report says there was no challenge filed.
The whole snafu could have been avoided had Patrick’s campaign just reached out ahead of time. That’s how New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, another late-entrant to the 2020 race, secured his spot, a Michigan Democratic Party spokesman previously told the Herald.
As Patrick’s team rushed to collect the requisite signatures earlier this month, his campaign manager, Abe Rakov, implored Michigan officials to put the former governor on the ballot anyway.
Rakov said Patrick wasn’t “being given the same opportunity to compete” as Bloomberg. But strategists told the Herald that Patrick needed to play by the same rules as the rest of the field, despite his 11th-hour challenges.
