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Candidate says he’ll sue GOP over ballot results

Fisher declares vote ‘shameless’

Tea Party- aligned candidate for governor Mark Fisher came up short for a spot in the primary.Stephan Savoia/AP

The Tea Party-aligned candidate for governor who missed winning a spot on the Republican primary ballot by a razor-thin margin said it is “definite” he will sue the state party and dispute the results of Saturday’s GOP convention in court.

Mark R. Fisher fell about six votes short — out of more than 2,500 cast by convention delegates — from joining Charlie Baker on the September primary ballot.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Fisher said the improprieties with the voting process were “so blatant, so obvious, so shameless” that it was certain he would prevail in court. A fired-up Fisher said he would likely file the suit within a week.

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Rob Cunningham, the executive director of the state party, has defended the voting process as fair and transparent. On Tuesday, Cunningham declined to comment further, citing the “threat of legal challenge.”

At the state Republican convention in Boston, Fisher needed 15 percent of the 2,533 votes cast by delegates to be included on the ballot, according to the state party.

He missed that threshold by less than half a percentage point, party officials declared more than an hour and a half after initial results had been announced. In a press release, the state party said there were 2,095 votes for Baker, 374 for Fisher, and 64 blank votes.

Confusion over the blank votes — which Cunningham has described as instances where delegates voted present, supporting neither Baker nor Fisher — was among the many issues Fisher cited when declaring he had a “100 percent” chance of success in getting on the primary ballot.

Fisher, a Shrewsbury businessman and political newcomer, said he had started a legal fund for the effort but was not sure how much he would need to raise to pay for the case.

“This is not a matter of interpretation or opinion,” Fisher said. “What did Adams say? ‘Facts are stubborn things.’”

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A spokesman for Baker, the party’s 2010 nominee for governor and a former health insurance company executive, had no comment.

There are eight other people running to succeed Governor Deval Patrick: five Democrats and three independent candidates.


Joshua Miller can be reached at joshua.miller@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @ jm_bos.