Chris Dodd will not be on the Presidential preference primary ballot in New York on February 5, Ballot Access News reports. Candidates were required to file at least 5,000 petition signatures by December 6 to qualify for placement on the ballot, and the Democratic Senator from Connecticut apparently did not meet the deadline.

If this was a strategic decision, the Dodd campaign's plan must be to allocate the bulk of its funds to earlier primary states, and not spend money on gathering signatures in New York. But according to the New York State Board of Elections website, "there is no geographic distribution requirement for signatures as with other statewide elections." Therefore, all of the signatures could have been gathered in, say, Manhattan, rather than sending staffers to every congressional district in the state, as candidates for state offices are sometimes required to do. So how expensive could it be?

Due to its relative proximity to his home state, Dodd might have expected to enjoy some name recognition in the Empire State. Among others, he will appear on ballots in California, Oklahoma and Illinois, but not New York.

-- Kyle Trygstad