The national Green Party has decided to hold its 2007 annual meeting in Reading, Pennsylvania, July 12-15. The choice of Pennsylvania is fraught with symbolism. No state has ever treated the Green Party worse than Pennsylvania has.

First, even though the Green Party polled enough votes in November 2004 to meet Pennsylvania’s definition of “political party”, the state treated it as though it weren’t a qualified party, and required 67,070 signatures for its 2006 statewide nominees.

When the party tried and failed to meet that requirement, its U.S. Senate candidate was told he had to pay $80,408 for the costs of checking his petition. Its gubernatorial candidate was intimidated into withdrawing so that she wouldn’t be equally liable.

On top of that, almost one-third of Pennsylvania’s counties failed to count the party’s write-in votes, even though Pennsylvania election law considered those write-ins valid.