For immediate release
August 7, 2009 |
**Press Conference**
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 10am
NYC Board of Elections
32 Broadway
New York, NY 10004 |
Press Contact:
Karina Garcia, 917-843-7503
or 212-694-8762 |
Socialist campaign files petitions to challenge Bloomberg
On Tuesday, Aug. 11, the Frances Villar for Mayor campaign will submit nearly twice as many petitions as required to appear on the ballot for November’s mayoral race. Although the New York Board of Elections requires 7,500 signatures of registered voters to appear on the ballot, Villar’s campaign is submitting over 14,000.
“In the middle of an economic crisis, it is obscene that a billionaire—the city’s richest man—would claim to represent New Yorkers,” Villar stated. “My campaign will reach out directly to poor and working people with a simple message: Billionaires, your time is up! Poor and working people come first.”
Villar will appear on the ballot on the Socialism and Liberation ticket. She will be the first woman of color ever to appear on the ballot for New York City.
Frances Villar on the cover of the July 20th El Diario
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The petitions were collected entirely by campaign volunteers. "We will be on the ballot this Fall because volunteers in all five boroughs sacrificed days of work, their weekends, and after-work hours to collect petitions," stated PSL candidate Frances Villar, who personally put several 8-hour days into the petitioning effort. "This campaign has to function on people's power, not money power. Like millions of families in New York City, we have to get by on a shoe-string budget. We do not have the billions of dollars that Mayor Bloomberg does, but we have tenacity and self-sacrifice," Villar continued.
The petitioning drive secured an average of over 1,000 signatures per day, and put the Frances Villar for Mayor campaign in contact with tens of thousands of New Yorkers. "Our volunteers reported an overwhelming positive response to the message of the campaign," said Yenica Cortes, co-coordinator for the campaign. "People enthusiastically signed up when they heard there would be a working-class alternative for mayor, a candidate who would challenge the landlords, Wall Street, and the epidemic of racist police brutality," Cortes continued.
Frances Villar's challenge to Bloomberg was the front page story on the July 20th issue of El Diario/La Prensa, and she has recently appeared on NY1, Telemundo and Russia Today.
Go to VotePSL.org for more information.
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