Town Councilor Jason Zandri Resigns from Wallingford Democratic Town Committee
Wallingford, CT (June 2, 2021) - Town Councilor Jason Zandri resigned from the Wallingford Democratic Town Committee (WDTC) on Tuesday, June 1, and is no longer seeking the WDTC endorsement for the upcoming election.
Immediately after the last election cycle, in November and December of 2020, the WDTC Officers and Executive Board started planning for the 2021 municipal elections. The very first thing to decide was how many candidates to run. Parties can run up to nine per slate, but the At-Large Voting system makes this a complicated decision.
The Officers put the question to the Executive Board to debate. The Executive Board voted that the WDTC should select six candidates for Town Council and six for Board of Education and ask them to run as a united slate. The exploratory candidates will decide among themselves who of them should be the final six candidates on the slate. The Officers and Executive Board have agreed to accept their recommendations.
The reasoning behind this decision is as follows:
- In the At-Large System, no party can win more than six seats, as the other three are reserved for the minority party, if they do not win enough votes. If you run six candidates, all six are guaranteed a CHANCE to win.
- We want the Democratic candidates to run as a slate. If nine people are running but three are guaranteed to lose, this sets up a competitive process.
- The WDTC is financially supporting the slates. There is a big difference between splitting resources twelve ways versus eighteen ways. In addition, the extra six people (three town council and three BOE) who are running are spending an enormous amount of their personal time, energy, and resources only to be guaranteed to lose.
The non-incumbent exploratory candidates—aspiring candidates seeking the party’s endorsement—and the returning incumbents knew from the beginning that the candidate field would be narrowed down to six for each slate.
All exploratory candidates were expected to act as team players. It was hoped that incumbents would support new exploratory candidates and in turn learn from them.
Unfortunately, Jason Zandri did not accept the WDTC’s stance, nor did he participate in activities to connect with voters. This resulted in his decision to part ways with the WDTC, stating: “If running all nine is not the decision of the Democratic Town Committee and they are only going to endorse six, I will solve the issue for one person seeking an endorsement; I will drop out of seeking the nomination from the DTC and I will petition to run without the endorsement.”
We are disappointed that Mr. Zandri will not be participating in the process with the WDTC but wish him well on his future endeavors.
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Media Contact
Alida Cella, Chair, WDTC
alidacella@hotmail.com
203-676-0819
