Ordered that the judgment is reversed insofar as appealed from, on the law, without costs or disbursements, and the proceeding is dismissed.
The petition for an opportunity to ballot was defective because of insufficient signatures (see, Matter of Hochberg v D'Apice, 112 A.D.2d 1067, 1068, affd 65 N.Y.2d 960). In any event, an opportunity to ballot may be afforded where there is a ostensibly viable candidacy nullified by technical challenge, thereby depriving the party's voters of their manifest intent to field a candidate (Matter of Hochberg v D'Apice, supra, at 1068). No such circumstances were present here. Not only was the sole designating petition facially invalid because of the failure to obtain the required minimum number of signatures (see, Matter of Quaglia v Lefever, 143 A.D.2d 238), but, in addition, that petition was never even filed. Mangano, P.J., Thompson, Sullivan and Lawrence, JJ., concur.