On October 19, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Stengel heard oral arguments in The Constitution Party of Pennsylvania, et al, v Cortes, in Philadelphia, case no. 09-1691. The judge did not ask many questions, but he said several times that the case is interesting, and he asked questions about the type of relief that might possibly be granted. The case challenges Pennsylvania’s unique system of requiring candidates and parties to pay the costs of checking their petitions, in case those petitions are held to be inadequate. It also challenges Pennsylvania’s arbitrary standards on which write-ins to tally, and the failure of some counties to count any write-ins. And it challenges the test a party must meet, in order to place nominees on the ballot in regularly-scheduled elections without the need for a petition. That test is that the party must have registration membership of 15% of the state total, which is more than 1,000,000 registered voters.

The other plaintiff political parties besides the Constitution Party are the Green and Libertarian Parties.