{news} Ferrucci in Waterbury Republican-American

[David Bedell]

Third party added to ballot GreenParty candidate to run against DeLauro

Monday, October 11, 2004

By Alexander MacInnes


Copyright © 2004 Republican-American

First he was on, then he was off, and now he's back on.

Ralph Ferrucci, Green Party candidate for the 3rd Congressional District,
will soon be placed on the ballot after being nominated by his party in late
April, pulling out of the race in August and being renominated last
Wednesday at New Haven's Unitarian Church on Whitney Avenue.

As soon as his party notifies the Secretary of the State's office, he will
be placed on the ballot to run against seven-term incumbent Democrat Rosa
DeLauro and Republican challenger H. Richter Elser.

Ferrucci's late push has town clerks from Waterbury to New Haven calling
their printers to add his name or doing it themselves by manually printing
his name on sticky labels and fixing them to absentee ballots. When he
pulled out in August, the ballots were not yet prepared.

"You just have to roll with the punches," said Judith E. Crosswait,
Naugatuck's borough clerk, who has already sent out more than 200 absentee
ballots.

Now that the ballots have been printed, his late addition means more work,
and maybe additional expenses, for the town clerks. It also means more
effort for voters who have already asked for absentee ballots and want to
vote for Ferrucci, a New Haven resident.

Ferrucci was first nominated April 30 at the former Green Party offices on
Eld Street. He said Green Party officials only contacted 100 out of the 670
registered Green Party voters in the 3rd District and only 12 people showed
up to nominate him.

"I dropped out because not everyone in the district had a chance to vote for
me," Ferrucci said Thursday. "If they didn't have the right to vote for me,
it wouldn't be a real nomination. Ã,Â. This time they had the ability to
come down (for the nomination)."

That nomination was legal, but Ferrucci wanted to contact all 670 Green
Party voters.

Because his name is to be added to the ballot, voters who have already sent
in absentee ballots must contact their town clerks or the Secretary of the
State's office for new ballots if they want to vote for Ferrucci.

"If there are people out there who decide, 'I want to vote for that
candidate, ' and their name is not on the ballot, that's an issue,"
Waterbury City Clerk Antoinette Spinelli said. "I have to send them an
additional ballot."

Spinelli sent out about 60 ballots to residents in Waterbury's 71-2 and 71-3
districts. She, like Crosswait, said she did not have the printers turn out
too many ballots because she was "tipped off that it may change."

Ferrucci, who is coordinating Ralph Nader's presidential bid in Connecticut,
has about $3,000 in his coffers compared to DeLauro's $100,000 purse.