The Pennsylvania petition deadline is August 1. The Green Party of Pennsylvania is hoping that the Reconstruction Party of Philadelphia will have secured enough signatures on the Green petition to give it a chance of succeeding. The state requires 24,666 signatures. Petitions are accepted if they have enough signatures on their face, unless somone challenges. The Libertarian and Constitution Parties are also turning in their petitions on August 1, and Ralph Nader is submitting his on the same day, at 11 a.m. Nader has already released a press release saying he will be turning in 53,000 signatures. The Libertarians expect to submit 47,000.
What/Who are the Reconstruction Party? For some reason I thought McKinney had something to do with a Reconstruction Party of New Orleans so are they affliated?
I was under the impression that the Reconstruction Party had backed off of the presidential race once Obama locked up the nomination.
I can’t imagine that given their lack of enthusiasm about challenging Obama, that they got that many signatures.
Is there any word on how many signatures that the Greens collected on their own or how many signatures the RP would have needed to collect?
The Reconstruction Party has always supported Cynthia McKinney. I have never heard that they had any interest in Obama.
What I’d heard was that they had strongly supported McKinney, but when it became clear that Obama was locking up the Democratic nomination, that they suddenly became a lot less enthusiastic about running a national campaign.
Many of the Greens in Pennsylvania, including many county chapters are actively supporting Ralph Nader.
Some of the activities of the Reconstruction Party (Philadelphia) and other radical black groups (including MOVE) can be found at:
http://www.voxunion.com/
Many PA Greens have told me that McKinney is associated with too many radicals (MOVE) and thus they have decided to back Nader instead.
Any idea on wether the CP will make the ballot Richard?
Probably the Constitution Party will just have a smidgen over the legal requirement, so it probably will be on if no one challenges.
Is PA one of those states like IL where you have automatic ballot access if you file and don’t get challenged?
It’s automatic, but the petition must have at least the legal required number of signatures. No other state is like Illinois, where even a petition with a number of signatures below the legal minimum is sufficient if no one challenges.
And we know in 2004 what happens when someone challenges, even with illegal funds to do so!
The really outrageous thing about Pennsylvania is that the Democrat or Republican nominee only has to get a couple of thousand signatures to get on the ballot, while each 3rd party candidate has to obtain tens of thousands of signatures.
It’s also worth noting that the Department of State _will_ throw out signatures at the submission stage if they are facially invalid, e.g. if the date is out of order or if the municipality and county don’t match.
Assuming that PA has about 13 million people, the number of signatures for all candidates should be the square root which, in this case, would be 3,605 signautres.
Let’s be honest here folks. We f*cking love nerds!