I can't begin to tell you how hard the canvassing period was! We hit the streets every day, rain or shine, to gather enough signatures to get on the ballot. Judicial candidates who are running borough-wide need a whopping 2k signatures and we managed to get 9300!!! The easy part was greeting people out in the public and engaging them in discussion. The hard part was knocking on doors bothering folks, getting cursed out and even spit on by people who are disgusted with the state of our Democratic Party. I'm running to make a change, but some folks didn't bother to let me explain myself. I didn't let it discourage me because many, many more responded well to my message and even brought friends to sign my petition.
The best thing was serendipitous meetings with friends, associates, colleagues, former students, and friends of friends, like Dr. Richard Nuñez-Lawrence. It was also nice meeting new friends and hearing so many voters' perspectives.
The good outweighed the bad as far as canvassing goes, but I am still concerned at how it is designed to prevent ballot access to potential candidates. Some candidates spend tens of thousands of dollars just to hire professional canvassers! Even if I had that kind of money, I would not spend it on that. Perhaps we should have a conversation on digital canvassing.
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