Yvette Alexander campaign, challenger spar over ballot petitions Alexander aides say their ballot petitions are on the level. (YVETTE M. ALEXANDER) A campaign aide to D.C. Council member Yvette M. Alexander testified Thursday that he had signed ballot nominating petitions as a circulator when he did not himself circulate the petitions, a violation of District rules. But the aide said those petitions were discarded before they were submitted to the Board of Elections and Ethics, which is now considering whether to oust Alexander (D-Ward 7) from the April 3 primary ballot. Under city regulations, a candidate's nominating petitions must be circulated only by an eligible registered voter who attests that they personally witness each signature they collect. An Alexander opponent alleges that her campaign did not follow those regulations, hiring paid workers to gather signatures only to have Alexander aides sign them later as the circulators. Two Alexander campaign aides, Derek Ford and George Browne, signed the vast majority of Alexander's petitions as circulators. The challenger, Dawn Matthews, suggested that they instead signed petitions that other workers had circulated, making them ineligible to be counted toward the 250-signature minimum needed to qualify for the ballot. Ford testified to the board that the campaign did hire field workers who collected petition signatures, but those petitions were never submitted to the board. David W. Wilmot, a lawyer representing the Alexander campaign, said he advised the campaign before the petitions were submitted that they could not submit signatures that the official signed circulators did not themselves collect. "I was very specific about that," he said. Any noncompliant petitions, Ford said, were subsequently discarded. Nichols asked Ford how the board could be assured that none of the bad petitions were not submitted to the board. Wilmot answered for him: "The only was you're going to know is, he's under oath, he's testifying, and it's the truth," he said. Matthews - who appeared at the hearing with Kemry Hughes, campaign manager for Alexander opponent Tom Brown - also questioned whether it was possible for the circulators to collect as many signatures as they did as quickly as they did - in once case, 198 in one day for Browne; 300 in one day for Ford. Hughes suggested that in his experience those kinds of numbers are unrealistic, but Browne disagreed, testifying that he is retired and in some cases collected signatures from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. Hughes also said he spoke to several signers of Alexander petitions, who said that neither Browne nor Ford circulated the petitions they signed. But Matthews did not offer witnesses to verify the claims. She did offer the statement of her fiance, who said the person who circulated his signature was "not an elderly gentleman." The circulator who signed the petition it appeared on was Browne, who is 63. The board's chairman, Deborah K. Nichols, called the allegations a "very serious matter" and asked the Alexander campaign to provide records related to the paid field workers, hired through the Lancer Group, as well as campaign finance records. She asked Matthews to provide sworn affidavits from witnesses backing up her claims. "This is a very serious process," Nichols said. This is access to our ballot. The board must rule on the challenge by Monday.