As noted below, on June 30, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Stengel imposed a county distribution requirement for Pennsylvania statewide minor party and independent candidate petitions. No other state has county distribution requirements for statewide candidate or party petitions, because they violate “one person, one vote.”

The Fifth U.S. House district of Pennsylvania has all or part of 15 counties. Thus, the voters of the 15th district have the power to place a statewide candidate on the ballot, all by themselves. By contrast, the people of Philadelphia, which has enough people to be entitled to two entire U.S. House districts and part of a third, cannot place a statewide candidate on the ballot all by themselves, because to do that takes voters from 10 counties (for some offices).

Thus, Judge Stengel’s order gives more political power to the people of the 5th district, relative to the people of Philadelphia, even though Philadelphia is much more populous. This is a theoretical point but a very significant point. Judge Stengel has undermined the principle that is responsible for the redistricting revolution of the 1960’s, which ended favoritism for sparsely-populated areas in districting.