Trayon White defends his campaign signatures
WASHINGTON - A D.C. mayoral candidate is firing back at claims he doesn’t have enough valid signatures to get his name on the ballot for the Democratic nomination.
To qualify for the Democratic Primary ballot, candidates need at least 2,000 signatures from registered Democratic voters in the district.
Ward 8 councilmember and mayoral candidate Trayon White says his campaign gathered more than 4,300 signatures.
However, the campaign team for D.C. councilmember and mayoral candidate Robert White recently challenged the validity of 2,768 of Trayon's signatures – citing significant discrepancies.
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Some of those issues include the signer not being registered to vote at the address listed on the petition when they signed or the signer wasn’t a registered voter at all.
A preliminary review from the D.C. Board of Elections found 2,192 of those challenged signatures were valid, leaving White with enough signatures to qualify for the democratic primary.
Trayon White says when he found out Robert White's campaign was going to challenge the validity of the signatures they collected it was shocking.
"I feel like it was deceiving because he waited until the last minute to call me," White said. "Even though we compete for the same seat I look at Robert White as a brother of mine, so it did hurt me; but it’s the nature of the game, it’s politics."
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Councilmember White was surrounded by members of his campaign and supporters during a press conference Friday and said his focus now turns to a preliminary hearing next Tuesday.
"Essentially, we have a chance to speak about do we want to go forward with fighting them or they have a chance to go forward with fighting us doing the petition, and they can actually drop their challenge because we have proof we have enough signatures on the ballot and if not then we’ll go forward in a hearing going through each one combating what they believe is invalid versus valid," White said
FOX 5 reached out to Councilmember Robert White's campaign team, and we received this statement.
"This is a moment when we need a leader who will bring all the wards of our city together and effectively manage a $20 billion budget to solve the big problems facing our residents," Robert White said. "We have had eight years of government mismanagement that has cost us millions of dollars. I am running this campaign with the same due diligence and focus on execution that I will bring to office as Mayor."
The campaign did not answer whether they still plan to challenge the signatures.