On October 10, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that signatures on petitions are valid even if the signer forgot, or didn’t know, to include “2012” in the date column. This decision reverses the 2-1 decision of the Commonwealth Court.
This decision has no effect for the Libertarian Party statewide petition, which had already been shown to be valid. But it will be of help in future years. Furthermore, it is conceivable that if the Constitution Party had not withdrawn its statewide petition this year, given this decision, it might also have had enough valid signatures. Thanks to Larry Otter for this news. The Supreme Court decision mentions “common sense” in its decision. The petition forms all say “Revised 1/2012” at the bottom.
Common sense? The Supreme Court used common sense? Are they aloud to do that? Seriously I’ve been making this point for years. In fact since you can’t get the forms until after the start of the petition period, and you have to file them by the deadline there’s no reason why a date is needed at all.
It’s a shame the CP withdrew its petition in this case.
Note to ballot drive coordinators and petitionsers:
You should still insist on filling in every blank space on petition forms in the future and not rely on any such good ruling being automatically recognized by the bureacrats and manipulators in the Secretary of State’s office nor by the evil Republican Party in PA.
It is a shame the Constitution Party gave in to the Republican intimidation. In this sense, they capitulated to the undemocratic tyranny leveled against them to try to get them off the ballot. They should have been all in and stood up to the challenge even if it meant they might go into heavy debt if they lost in the challenge process.
It was surprising too that they gave up like this in Pennsylvania, where they hoped to do well, being that their VP candidate is from Pennsylvania. And to give in to losing their ballot access in one of the biggest states is quite unfortunate.
Anyhow, this is a great ruling for future ballot access for third parties in Pennsylvania.
I’m glad to see that these signatures with incomplete dates ended up counting, and I do agree that not having the year with the date on this petition when it should be blatantly obvious that the petition was circulated this year was a ridiculous reason to disqualify those signatures, however, I also think that it was sloppy for the petition circulators to not have all of the date boxes filled in with the year as a part of the date on every signature. I always make sure that the dates are complete whenever I gather petition signatures where the dates are required, and so do all of my closest petitioning associates. I’ve petitioned in Pennsylvania on 5 occasions and I always made sure that all of the dates were complete every time. I think that not having the dates filled in completely on every signature was unprofessional on the part of the paid petition circulators, and if I had been taking their turn ins I would have called them out on this and told them that they were going to get their pay docked if every date box was not filled in completely. If that had happened, then this controversy about the dates never would have happened. It’s not that hard to make sure that all of the date boxes are complete. Come on people!
The Constitution Party did NOT give in to intimidation. We had a slightly different situation than the LP. The LP went in with about 49,000 total signatures and we went in with about 35,000. We both used used the same petitioning service in Philly which really did a pretty atrocious job. The numbers we were were reversing (and we were surely reversing a good number) in the challenge the first two days did not give us reasonable hope to prevail and meet the required number…about 20,500. I would submit that if the LP were only working with 35,000 total they would have come to the same conclusion. I believe what put them over the top was sheer raw numbers. I give them great credit for that and for their fight and perserverence, but I don’t like for people to conclude that the CP weakly gave into intimidation. That simply wasnt’t the case.
I’ve just learned we will also have a candidate for state treasurer. Patricia Fryman is listed on the ballot for treasurer.
“I would submit that if the LP were only working with 35,000 total they would have come to the same conclusion. I believe what put them over the top was sheer raw numbers. I give them great credit for that and for their fight and perserverence, but I don’t like for people to conclude that the CP weakly gave into intimidation. That simply wasnt’t the case.”
I totally agree with Gary Odom here.
As the attorney representing the LP in their fight against the PA GOP to stay on the ballot, the fact that we started with 10,442 valid signatures that were not challenged by the GOP (mistakenly it turns out) was a significant factor in our ability to chart a path to victory at every stage of this fight. I would say, however, that the threat of court costs and attorney fees being imposed on any party that lost against the GOP was also a significant factor in any decision to either stay in or capitulate. The main reason that the LP was able to fight to the end was the fact that LP volunteers flooded the review process such that we were able to meet the Court Order demanding that each side produce 20 volunteers per day. The CP, conversely, was not able to comply with the Court Order. That forced the CP to face the reality (that the LP never really faced because we kept Judge Colins happy at every stage)that if they lost they would (likely) be assessed both costs AND attorney fees that would have been lodged against the CP attorneys personally. That kind of pressure is simply too great to withstand, prompting the CP to capitulate on the second day of the review.
I would also say that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has no compelling governmental interest in forcing the signer of a petition to record the year in which they signed. To the extent that there is a compelling governmental interest in knowing the year in which the signer recorded his/her signature, the most narrowly tailored way forward is for the Secretary of State to print, each year, on each nomination petition and paper ythe year in which it was valid to circulate. That will relieve the signer (engaged in core political speech) of the unnecessary obligation of recording the year. Accordingly, it is a violation of the First Amendment for a state to require the “speaker” to record the year, when the state can just as (or more) easily print the year on the top or bottom of each nomination petition or paper to effectuate the compelling governmental interest asserted.
Paul, you sound like a voice of great knowledge and reason on this subject. What is the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s compelling government interest in maintaining a ballot-access process that is capable of bankrupting a candidate or a small political party? (I distinguish the Commonwealth’s government interests from the interests of political parties.) It can’t simply be to prevent a crowded ballot, because a much smaller number of signatures would suffice to do that. New Jersey, with 2/3 the population, requires only 800 valid signatures, and they’ve never had a problem with overcrowded ballots.
The “bankrupting” is a two part question. First, is the process. Second, then the challenges which involve lawsuits.
First, it’s meant to show a standard of “viability” vs a lower standard of “support” from my understanding of most access laws the seem to require large signature numbers. However, an argument can that the process is skewed against independents/ smaller parties in that it’s cheaper to collect 2K sigs vs ~20K.
Second, the “loser pays” laws meant to prevent frivolous lawsuits is a large portion of the expense should the CP have lost and why they capitulated and expected the LP to do so as well.
IANAL
P.S. Thanks Paul for representing us well.
P.P.S. @Gary, I’d like to personally thank the CP volunteers for sticking around and helping us win. Where ballot access is concerned 3rd parties need to work together to get the laws changed to be more reasonable.
(Edit of first post: Gary is also right about it. It was risk/reward scenario. We had lower risk due to raw numbers, but I believe it’s possible the CP would have continued if there was no risk of great $$$ loss involved.)