Voters confused on who they are signing ballot petitions for

To paraphrase Oprah: you get a signature, and you get a signature, and you get a signature.

With approximately 8,782,999 petitioning candidates — OK, there’s only five but it feels like a lot more — voters are apparently con- fused about which candidates they are signing petitions for and which ones have already qualified for the August primary ballot.

A spokesman for Ned Lamont’s campaign said multiple people approached Lamont at an event in New Haven to proudly let him know they’d signed his petition.

The problem is Lamont has no petition.

So whose petition did they sign? If they’re Democrats, it could have been Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim’s petition since he was also at that event, or it could have been Greenwich executive Guy Smith who is also a petitioning Democrat.

Or if they were really confused, they might have thought they were signing for one of three petitioning Republicans. Or one of three Republicans who, like Lamont, are already on the primary ballot. Or, maybe, they just thought they were entering a contest for a free trip to Florida. We may never know, but Lamont’s campaign is trying to get to the bottom of the petition mystery.

Signatures are due tomorrow and local registrars of voters have seven days to perform the glamorous work of verifying every single one.

Meanwhile, Lamont got in on the signing action and left his John Hancock on the side of Republican Steve Obsitnik’s imposing campaign tour bus, RV One, at an event in Hartford last week because, well, why not.

But if there was any impression the leading Democratic candidate for governor was throwing his support behind a fellow businessman from across the aisle, Lamont apparently wrote, “Vote Ned.”

Obsitnik said he hasn’t been able to locate the autograph from his opponent yet.

Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Obsitnik chats at a Save Our State fundraiser luncheon at the Old Town Hall in Wilton on Sunday.