Courtesy of Jake Siesel, Rhea McTiernan Huge, Elias Theodore and Norah Laughter

Members of the Ward 1 Democratic committee unanimously selected Norah Laughter ’26 as their candidate of choice for alder on Sunday, but nobody — including Laughter — is guaranteed a spot in the Democratic primary.

Instead of making an official endorsement, the downtown district’s committee is requiring all candidates wishing to appear on the primary ballot to qualify via petition.

At its Sunday meeting, the committee held what it called an “advisory” vote, in which members voted for their preferred candidate but did not officially endorse a candidate for placement on the primary ballot. New Haven’s Democratic Town Committee Chair Vincent Mauro Jr. told the News that the vote was a “formality.” 

Because Ward 1’s committee is almost entirely comprised of Yale students, Mauro said he felt it would be unfair for the committee to formally select a Democratic nominee for alder, instead opting for the petitioning process.

Although the committee’s Sunday vote did not determine which candidates will appear on the primary ballot, two of the four alder hopefuls still called the impartiality of the committee into question. 

The four members of the seven-person committee who attended Sunday’s meeting — Madeline Pitre ’26, Ashley Sottosanti ’26, Salma Laraki ’26 and Avani Mehta ’15 — are all friends of Laughter, Ward 1 Alder Kiana Flores ’25.5 told the News. Pitre, Sottosanti and Laraki are rising seniors in Pierson College, as is Laughter. Pitre confirmed to the News that Laughter “recruited” her onto the committee last fall.

“I don’t think people should view the vote as a landslide or triumph for Norah,” Elias Theodore ’27, who is also running for Ward 1 alder, wrote to the News. “It was a formality. Four people that she placed on the committee voted for her, as any friends would.” 

Rhea McTiernan Huge ’27, who has secured Flores’ endorsement to represent Ward 1, echoed Theodore’s dismissal of the vote’s result and said that the meeting gave her a “better understanding of what the field of politics is like.”

When asked about the makeup of the committee, Laughter said that she named registered Democrats to the ward committee as part of her job as one of the ward’s two Democratic Town Committee co-chairs.

On Sunday, each candidate was given time to introduce themselves and their platform before the committee members casted their votes. 

Jake Siesel ’27, the first Democratic candidate to enter the race for Ward 1, did not attend the committee meeting, citing late notice of its scheduling and unavoidable family plans.

For the candidates to successfully petition for a line on the primary ballot, they must collect a  number of signatures from eligible Ward 1 voters equal to at least 1 percent of the number of votes cast the last Ward 1 alder election or 7,500 signatures — whichever number is lesser, according to rules outlined by the Connecticut Office of the Secretary of the State. 

In 2023, Flores ran uncontested for the Ward 1 alder post, receiving a total of 94 votes. Therefore, this year’s hopefuls may only need to obtain one signature to qualify for the primary. 

Limited committee membership causes petitioning mandate

According to Flores, Ward 1’s Democratic committee was revived last fall after several years of not meeting.

Each of Ward 1’s two Democratic Town Committee co-chairs was allowed to name up to 25 members, according to Mauro. However, only Laughter nominated people to the committee. 

Though McTiernan Huge said that she has been “acting” as the ward’s second co-chair since January 2024, when Flores began her term as alder, Flores still officially holds the role.

According to Flores, McTiernan Huge collected the necessary signatures to take on the co-chair role but Flores neglected to file the paperwork needed to make McTiernan Huge a co-chair because it “slipped our minds as other things came up.” 

However, Mauro offered a slightly different account of events, saying that Flores never resigned her co-chair position when she became Ward 1 alder, which meant that he never had the opportunity to name her replacement.

Laughter said she did not know why Flores, as an official co-chair, did not nominate anyone to the committee. 

In recent years, Ward 1’s Democratic co-chairs decided on the Democratic endorsement without input from a committee, Flores said. But this year, the co-chairs — Laughter and Flores — chose not to give a formal Democratic endorsement of any candidates from the already-crowded field. 

Laughter wrote in a statement following the Sunday advisory vote that she expects it will be “valuable for myself and all candidates to participate in the petition process and qualify for the ballot based on community support,” which encourages the election process to be “focused on voters, where it belongs.”

“I believe that this final outcome, where there is no endorsement and each of us has to petition, is fair,” Theodore told the News.

Candidates must collect signatures and file their petitions by Aug. 6.