Albany

Libertarian lunch spot owner Alexander Portelli submitted petitions Monday to run as an independent candidate for mayor.

"I'm an average citizen who understands what people need," said Portelli, 23, who owns Portelli's Joe N' Dough Cafe on Central Avenue.

Crediting a team of more than a dozen volunteers, Portelli said he filed more than 1,500 signatures despite the fact that he could not legally witness any of them because he is on parole for a drug conviction and ineligible to register to vote.

Portelli's filing could make him the sixth candidate on the mayoral ballot, including those in the Democratic primary, but it could also present a legal quandary that until now had been purely hypothetical.

In March, Republican Albany County Elections Commissioner Rachel Bledi questioned whether a provision of the city charter that requires elective officers to be a "qualified elector and resident of the city for a continuous period of at least one year prior to taking office" would bar Portelli from running.

Bledi said "qualified elector" could be interpreted as qualified voter, which Portelli is not as long as he remains on parole.

On Monday, Bledi said she had not yet discussed the matter with her Democratic counterpart, Matthew Clyne.

"We'd have to research it a little bit," Bledi said.

Because the Libertarian Party no longer has an automatic ballot line in New York, libertarian candidates need to gather what are known as independent nominating petitions.

The county Board of Elections could not immediately say how many signatures Portelli needed, but Portelli said he had been told the number was 1,203.

If the petitions stand, Portelli would join Democrats Corey Ellis and Kathy Sheehan, as well as Republican Jesse Calhoun, Conservative Party member Joseph Sullivan and Green Party member William Peltz in the race.

While he said older voters steeped in the city's near-century of Democratic dominance have told him he has no chance to win, Portelli said his candidacy has touched the city's youth, noting a 21-year-old University at Albany student named Jacob Sherretts led his petition effort.

"We had a lot of young people, a lot of student organizations that helped us," he said. "It's a true coalition."

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