Glendale mayoral candidate Jamie Aldama drops out after signatures disqualified

Glendale mayoral hopeful Jamie Aldama will no longer appear on the July 30 ballot, opting Monday to end his candidacy amid a lawsuit challenging nearly 700 signatures his campaign collected to qualify for the race.

The decision to bow out of the election followed a Maricopa County Recorder’s Office review of those challenged signatures that found about 498 of them were disqualified. That left him 19 signatures shy of the 1,888 signatures needed to run.

Ahead of a scheduled court date on Monday afternoon, Aldama filed a voluntary withdrawal statement, removing himself from the upcoming primary election.

“Withdrawing is not an action I take lightly. It’s not something that I want to do, but it’s the right thing to do,” Aldama said in a phone call with The Arizona Republic.

“The county counted correctly. We are accepting that, and we move on, absolutely move on,” said the former Glendale councilmember who looked to unseat longtime incumbent Mayor Jerry Weiers.

Who challenged the signatures?

Timothy Schwartz, a Glendale resident and the Arizona GOP’s Legislative District 26 chairperson, filed the lawsuit last week.

In the complaint, he claimed that 677 of the 2,367 signatures the Aldama campaign submitted for qualification were either forged, duplicated or represented non-registered people.

The complaint also alleged that six individuals who circulated Aldama’s petition for signatures “systemically forged and falsified” several names.

To qualify for Glendale’s mayoral race, prospective candidates must have collected at least 1,888 valid signatures from voters.

After Schwartz challenged Aldama’s signatures, the Recorder’s Office completed a review.

It invalidated 498 of them, which put Aldama 19 signatures short of the threshold.

The other 179 signatures Schwartz challenged were determined to be valid, according to the review.

Of the 498 disqualified, 108 represented non-registered voters, 124 came from residents outside of the district and 91 didn’t match the signatures on file with the Recorder’s Office.

In court filings submitted over the weekend, Schwartz cited a 1984 Arizona Supreme Court ruling to argue that another 135 signatures should be thrown out because they were submitted by the six petition circulators who he alleged forged or falsified signatures.

“If a circulator engages in signature fraud or falsifications, all petition signatures collected by him or her — including signatures that may be genuine or otherwise legally sufficient — may be disqualified,” the latest filing states.

Aldama took responsibility on Monday for failing to verify the signatures before filing his petition.

However, he refuted claims that any were fraudulently collected or forged. He also pointed out that the Recorder’s Office only mentioned that certain signatures didn’t match the voter roll, not that they were fraudulent.

According to Aldama, he hired the firm Groundswell for signature-gathering services. All six of the circulators named in the lawsuit, he said, were contracted and were not direct volunteers with the campaign.

“My question to the firm is on their quality control and we’ll have those conversations,” Aldama said.

Based on the conversations he’s already had with Groundswell, Aldama said the company also contends the fraud allegations.

A company representative did not return a request for comment.

A wide-open mayor race in Glendale

Aldama’s withdrawal means Mayor Weiers is all but certain to retain his seat as the head of the Glendale City Council.

“He’ll have another four years to be in office,” Aldama noted. “For me that’s unfortunate, but I can’t do anything about that right now. We’ll just see the four years through and see what happens.”

Schwartz was the previous Legislative District 30 chairperson for the GOP. That’s when he authored the 2014 Maricopa County and state Republican Party resolutions that censured the late Sen. John McCain for being too liberal.

Aldama on Monday accused Weiers of being behind Schwartz’s lawsuit.

“Rather than have my opponent do it, he had someone else do it,” Aldama said of Weiers.

While not directly denying Weiers had any involvement with the lawsuit, his campaign consultant, Constantine Querard, called Aldama’s claim a distraction from “the real story.”

“Which is that he got caught and left the race before the judge threw him off the ballot,” Querard said, adding, “He can blame anyone he wants to, but at the end of the day, he left the race.”

When pressed about Weiers' relationship with Schwartz, Querard acknowledged that the two have known each other for about a decade, with Schwartz being a longtime supporter of the Republican incumbent.

After seeing Aldama campaign as a Democrat, Republicans likely “noticed and were happy to help the mayor,” Querard said.

What’s next for Aldama?

Aldama stepped down from his seat as the Ocotillo District representative on the Glendale council earlier this month so he could actively campaign for mayor.

Now that he’s exited from the race, Aldama said, he will take the next few days to connect with supporters, ride his Harley Davidson and spend time with his grandkids.

“We’ll go back and continue to support my community as I’ve done the last 10 years,” Aldama said of Glendale, where he was born and raised.

“I will circle back with my family and decide how we can proceed or pursue politics in the future, in the city we love and the city we support,” he added.

Asked whether he’d consider running for a council seat again, Aldama noted that he now lives in the Yucca District, which won’t have an open seat for another four years.

He said he’ll be watching that race closely this July, as two newcomers, Lupe Encinas and Dianna Guzman, are vying for the seat that long-tenured councilmember Joyce Clark is leaving at the end of her term.

To his supporters, Aldama expressed an “immense amount of gratitude.” He also thanked the organizations that gave him space and an audience to pitch his ideas for mayor.

“I’m very grateful to the Glendale residents,” he said. “They mean the world to me.”

Shawn Raymundo covers the West Valley cities of Glendale, Peoria and Surprise. Reach him at [email protected] or follow him on X @ShawnzyTsunami.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Jamie Aldama ends Glendale mayor campaign over 'fraudulent' signatures