GOP’s Ogonowski could be short on voter signatures

Republican Jim Ogonowski, who has the backing of key party members in his bid to challenge US Senator John F. Kerry, could be in danger of stumbling on his first crucial test: collecting 10,000 voter signatures to secure a spot on the GOP primary ballot.

With all the signatures submitted by the campaigns and the exhaustive certification process winding down, Ogonowski still needs at least 259 certified signatures to qualify for the September primary. But even that estimate is low, because he is expected to need a cushion of up to 1,000 more to withstand challenges to the validity of individual signatures that are sure to be mounted by his rival in the GOP primary, Jeff Beatty.

“There appears to be some question as to whether he will make it,” said Secretary of State William F. Galvin, a Democrat whose Election Division compiles signature tallies submitted by individual city and town clerks.

Candidates had until May 6 to submit signatures to municipal clerks. Local officials then have until May 27 to certify each signature as valid and submit a total from their communities to Galvin’s office.

Though five working days remain, most certifications and submissions have been completed, Galvin said. His office could not provide the exact number of cities and towns that had reported yesterday.

Ogonowski, a 28-year Air Force veteran from Dracut who lost a special election last year against US Representative Niki Tsongas, Democrat of Lowell, has about 9,750. Ogonowski is the only federal candidate in Massachusetts still seeking to get the needed certified signatures to qualify for the 2008 ballot.

Beatty - a Harwich security specialist and Army veteran who failed in a bid to unseat US Representative William D. Delahunt, a Quincy Democrat, in 2006 - has more than 17,000 certified signatures.

“Most candidates traditionally achieve a minimum number at this late point in the certification process and are building a surplus,” Galvin said. He said that traditionally, election specialists advise candidates to obtain a minimum 10 percent above the required number of certified signatures to insure against a challenge from opponents.

Ogonowski’s campaign strongly rejected any notion that his nomination papers would fall short and his candidacy would be short-circuited. The campaign said it handed over 22,000 signatures to local officials; it could not be learned yesterday why there was such a discrepancy between that total and the much smaller numbers trickling into the state.

“We are not worried about it,” said Alicia Preston. “We submitted well over the amount required.”

Preston said three key communities - Dracut, Chelmsford, and Boston - had still not reported their numbers. Dracut and Chelmsford are home turf for Ogonowski.

But Galvin’s Elections Division and Boston officials said yesterday that results from all three of those communities have been submitted. Preston said later that her information was dated and that other communities she didn’t identify had yet to finish certifying Ogonowski’s papers.

Galvin’s questions about the viability of Ogonowski’s signature drive coincided this week with a boost to Ogonowski from former governor Mitt Romney, who is hosting a $1,000-per-person fund-raiser tonight at the Taj Boston hotel on Arlington Street.

Romney is one of a number of leading Republicans backing Ogonowski who include former governor Paul Cellucci, former lieutenant governor and former GOP state chairwoman Kerry Healey, and US Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota. The chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, US Senator John Ensign of Nevada, has donated to Ogonowski’s campaign.

Earlier this month, Ogonowski launched a television ad that skewers Kerry as being absent from Massachusetts.

An attorney representing Beatty’s campaign has already notified the state’s election office that it will challenge Ogonowski’s candidacy based on irregularities in the nomination papers. When contacted yesterday, a spokesman for Beatty’s campaign said the staff would “cross that bridge when we come to it.”