by Thomas Breen
Sabin with campaign supporters, including Lisa Velasquez-Torres, outside 200 Orange Friday.
Democratic Registrar of Voters Shannel Evans with Farmer, as he double checks that he can sign his own petition.
The morning after the local Democratic Party endorsed State Rep. Pat Dillon for a 22nd term representing a west-side state house district, Democratic challengers Eli Sabin and Justin Farmer each stopped by the Registrar of Voters office to start the process of petitioning their respective ways onto the primary ballot.
They both left empty-handed, however, after Democratic Registrar of Voters Shannel Evans said Friday that — per the Secretary of the State’s office — the primary petition paperwork for this state-rep district won’t be available until May 26.
Sabin, a former downtown alder, and Farmer, a former Hamden town council member, are both looking to unseat Dillon, who has represented the 92nd district since the mid-1980s. The district covers parts of Amity, Westville, Edgewood, Dwight, West River, and the Hill.
On Thursday evening, Dillon secured the official endorsement of the New Haven Democratic Town Committee (DTC) after winning seven co-chair votes to Sabin’s three. (Farmer, who was present at the meeting, wound up not seeking any nominations or votes.)
That means Dillon is now guaranteed a spot on the Aug. 11 primary ballot. In order to force a contested Democratic primary, Sabin and Farmer each has to collect signatures from 5 percent of registered Democrats in the district — or around 407 in total — by Tuesday, June 9 at 4 p.m.
At around 10 a.m. Friday, Farmer and Sabin were both in the Registrar of Voters office on the second floor of the municipal office building at 200 Orange St. Sabin was there — with campaign supporters Jim Berger, Debbie Evans, and Sabin’s dad, Paul — to pick up the petition paperwork needed to start collecting official signatures. Farmer had picked up that same petition paperwork for his campaign at around 9 a.m.; he had circled back at 10 to double check that it’s ok for him to sign his own petition. (Evans confirmed that it is.)
However, after roughly 20 minutes worth of email and phone back-and-forth with the Secretary of the State’s office, Evans told the two Democrats that the primary petition paperwork won’t actually be available until May 26. “See you Tuesday,” she said.
The confusion stemmed from guidance in the Secretary of the State’s 2026 election calendar.
Page 13 of that 40-page document states that primary petitions for people looking to oppose major-party candidates for “municipal office” are available “on the day following the making of the party’s endorsement,” between May 20 to May 27.
That document then states that primary petitions for people looking to oppose major-party candidates for “the district offices of state senator, state representative, or judge of probate” are available starting May 26.
Clear enough, right? The 92nd state-house district primary petition paperwork should then be available on May 26?
Sabin said that things get a bit more confusing because the 92nd state-house district appears to technically be a “municipal office,” per state law, since it’s located entirely within the city of New Haven and does not cover any other municipalities. And state law defines a “District” as “any geographic portion of the state which crosses the boundary or boundaries between two or more towns.”
Well there you go.
Either way, the Secretary of the State’s office told Evans on Friday that the 92nd district primary paperwork won’t be available until May 26, and so Evans let Sabin and Farmer know that they’d have to come back on Tuesday. (Sabin later told the Independent that the secretary of the state’s office and the registrar of voters’ office had initially told him that the paperwork would be available on Friday, and that he was the one who raised the concern that it might not actually be available until May 26.)
Evans on Friday also instructed the challengers on the rules regarding the petition process — including that petition circulators must be registered Democrats and that all paperwork has to be back at Evans’ office by June 9 at 4 p.m. “As long as you’re in line or in the lobby by 4, I’m not gonna trip on it,” Evans said.
Farmer said that he had already begun collecting petition signatures, but no worries, he’ll just go back to get signatures again starting Tuesday.
Sabin exited 200 Orange to greet still more campaign supporters — including Lisa Velasquez-Torres and Sandra Pittman, who had shown up to help with the petition process. Which Sabin relayed now couldn’t begin until next week.
Check out the video below to watch Sabin make a pitch Friday morning for his primary-petition campaign.
Sabin and Farmer weren’t the only primary-petitioners at 200 Orange Friday morning. As Sabin and his team left, Jerald Barber arrived with plans to pick up petition paperwork for his bid to force a Democratic primary for the role of New Haven probate court judge. The current holder of that role, Americo Carchia, received the DTC’s uncontested endorsement for a second four-year term Thursday. Barber, a Democrat, ran against Carchia on the Independent Party and Republican Party lines in 2022. See below for Barber’s probate judge primary pitch.