'Gloves are off': Gilbert candidates say challenge tries to disenfranchise voters

By Tom Blodgett
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Three Gilbert Town Council candidates who are having their nominating petition signatures challenged are firing back at the effort to disqualify them from the 2024 ballot. 

Mayoral candidate Natalie DiBernardo and council candidate Noah Mundt said the challenges represented an effort to disenfranchise voters while council candidate Kenny Buckland said it was “political games.” All three said they are confident their signatures will stand. 

Gilbert resident Michael Webb pulled the signatures from the Gilbert Town Clerk’s office, then filed suit in Maricopa County Superior Court challenging whether those candidates had the required 1,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot. 

The suits are to be heard Monday and Tuesday. If Webb is successful on any of them, that candidate would be disqualified from the ballot, though they could run a write-in campaign. 

DiBernardo, for one, was not shy about naming who she said is behind Webb’s effort — mayoral opponent Shane Krauser — and declared, “All gloves are off as far as I am concerned.” 

“It is a shame that Shane Krauser's campaign felt the need to try to disqualify other candidates based on technicalities without even allowing them the opportunity to campaign,” she said. “Because really what that does is disenfranchise the voters who are asking for choices.  

“If these motions would go through, we basically would have an almost uncontested race in Gilbert. And that is not fair to the voters. And to me, it's not democracy.” 

DiBernardo said she has no hesitation about naming Krauser. 

“When you have Mike Webb on his campaign donation (report), and you have Mike Webb in his photos on his Instagram, I can very clearly, any person can go and say, ‘Oh, Mike Webb knows Shane. He’s supporting Shane.’ 

“So does Shane know about it? Probably. If he doesn't know about it, then he doesn't have a handle on his campaign because Mike Webb helps with his campaign.” 

In Krauser’s latest campaign finance report filed with the town, Webb is listed as contributing $200 on Feb. 19. He lists his occupation as retired. 

Webb also was a longtime precinct committee member for the Arizona Legislative District 14 Republican Party organization, which endorsed Krauser early in the process. Both of Krauser’s opponents in the nonpartisan race, DiBernardo and Vice Mayor Scott Anderson, also are Republicans. 

The Gilbert Independent’s attempts to reach Webb and Krauser for response were unsuccessful. 

“I'm going to connect the dots for people because basically Shane's campaign and the entire group (LD14 Republicans) is counting on voters being too stupid to connect the dots,” DiBernardo said. “And to me, it's ridiculous.” 

Neither Mundt nor Buckland named Krauser’s campaign. But Buckland noted that who was challenged says a lot, though he did not want to speak directly as to who was behind the effort if he did not have all the facts. 

“Let’s cut to the chase and do the math,” said Buckland, who is out of the country on an anniversary vacation. “In Gilbert, only Natalie, Noah and I were challenged. I mean, do the math. I think you can do that.” 

If Mundt and Buckland were to be tossed from the ballot, it would leave two candidates for two open seats: Aaron Accurso and Monte Lyons. Accurso previously was a longtime LD14 Republican precinct committee member and Lyons currently is. 

However, Webb has not contributed to either campaign.  

For his challenge to DiBernardo, Webb is represented by attorney Timothy La Sota. However, Webb is representing himself in the challenges to Mundt and Buckland. 

All three candidates said their candidacies will survive the challenge. DiBernardo and Buckland said they received word Thursday from the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office that they have enough signatures now certified to qualify for the ballot. 

Buckland said he knew he would be fine even before his certification came through. 

“I'm not worried about it,” he said. “Some people like to play political games, and some people like to challenge things before the competition starts. That's fine. I'm not doing that. I want the voters to have options.  

“Voters deserve options, and I think there's some people that are fear-based, and they want to keep people from having a choice or options. And ultimately the truth always comes out.” 

DiBernardo said she asked people if they could vote in Gilbert before asking them to sign, which she had to trust their answers. 

“I'm very happy that it turned out to be what they told me was true, and they were qualified, and that the county also certified that,” she said. 

Mundt, who serves as Gilbert Planning Commission’s chairperson, said he expects to receive his certification Friday afternoon after his pretrial hearing. He called Webb’s filing “lackluster.” 

“Actually there's multiple lines that are calling out the exact same signature for different things, and hence, (Webb is) double, triple and quadruple counting them (as bad signatures),” he said. “So the amount that's actually being challenged, I don't believe even exceeds what would give me the thousand-minimum threshold based on what I turned in. So I'm not expending a significant amount of energy on it because I don't believe that there's any merit to it whatsoever.” 

DiBernardo said she also believes Buckland and Mundt are in good shape. 

“I have full confidence that Noah and Kenny will be next to be justified,” she said. “I have no doubt that they will. I've seen their cases, so I know that it's just as shaky as the one they tried to build against me.” 

Mundt also condemned the effort to throw names off the ballot. 

“Although I think that checks and balances like this are very important, I believe this is more of a dirty tactic put out to try to disenfranchise voters by not giving them a choice,” he said. “I think Gilbert's better than this, and that's part of what my campaign hopes to bring.” 

We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.    

Tom Blodgett
Senior News Editor | Gilbert

tblodgett@iniusa.org

Meet Tom
Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.

Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.

Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism. 

Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.  

Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).