Around New England

Rayla Campbell Will Run Write-In Campaign For Congress This November

September 16, 2020

Rayla Campbell didn’t make the November ballot, but she will continue her campaign.

The Republican from Randolph will run a write-in campaign against incumbent Democratic U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Dorchester) in Massachusetts’s Seventh Congressional District after she was unable to make the ballot while running a write-in/sticker campaign in the September 1 GOP primary.

“A job half done is as good as none,’ she tweeted on Wednesday morning. “My plan is to run my little campaign and be a thorn in their side through November.”

“I didn’t work this hard to give up 2 months before the finish,” she continued. “People donated and people deserve my best effort. I’ll be around Democrats and that goes for those who seek to oppose, silence or slander me from both sides. I’ll be seeing you.”

Campbell received 1,202 votes in the primary, and needed at least 2,000 to make the ballot.

Campbell challenged the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office’s decision to keep her off the ballot. She argued that because the state lowered the signature threshold for candidates to get on the primary ballot due to the coronavirus emergency and in a normal year, the write-in vote requirement and signature requirement are the same, that she should’ve only needed 1,000 votes to make this November ballot.

However, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled against her on Monday, September 14. The court referred to Goldstein v. Massachusetts, a decision that cut the signature requirement in half for candidates to get onto the primary ballot.

“In Goldstein, because of the extraordinary circumstances then existing, we granted narrowly tailored equitable relief from § 44. We neither considered nor opined on whether the number of write-in votes required under § 40 to appear on the November 3 general election ballot should be reduced. In fact, we specifically made clear that our holding was “limited to the primary election . . . and [did] not affect the minimum signature requirements for the general election this year or for the primary elections in any other year.” Id. at 518. Thus, it does not follow from Goldstein that Campbell is entitled to be placed on the general election ballot as a result of having received more than 1,000 write-in votes in the primary. “