This week the New York State Conservative Party endorsed attorney Beth Parlato for New York's 27th Congressional District.

However, Parlato will not appear on the special election ballot in April.

"(The party) made the executive decision that we were not going to challenge, we were not going to be on the April 28 ballot. It makes no sense to split a vote. That's not why I'm doing this. I'm not here to split a vote," she said.

The special election will feature Democrat Nate McMurray and Republican Chris Jacobs, as well as Libertarian Duane Whitmer. The winner will serve the remaining nine months of former Congressman Chris Collins' term.

Parlato said a lot of her supporters aren't aware she won't be involved.

"It is confusing," she said. "We get phone calls every day. After the governor announced that there would be a special election last Monday, I think we had hundreds of phone calls so we're just answering them. The campaign is working hard to spread the word."

The candidate is still running in what looks to be a three-way Republican primary in June. She'll face Jacobs and current Erie County Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw. Although, she doesn't expect to be challenged for the Conservative line, Parlato believes the party's endorsement will help in the Republican race.

"I think it means a lot because, personally, I've been voting for a long time, since I was 18 years old and I know that in primary elections that the more conservative electorate tends to go out and vote in primaries so I think that that is absolutely going to work in my favor," she said.

With all the confusion about who is running and in which election, Parlato said she feels it's necessary to launch an educational campaign.

"We're doing it by our house email list," she said. "Everybody will be getting emails. We're also doing it by videos. We're going to call it a table talk and it's just going to be me actually talking into a video and we're going to put that out digitally on social media."