The Pennsylvania Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties have all decided to appeal the March 7 decision of a U.S. District Court that they don’t have standing to sue over the Pennsylvania challenge system, which leaves any statewide independent candidate, or any statewide petitioning party, in jeopardy of over $100,000 if they submit a petition that has fewer valid signatures than are required.

In other Pennsylvania news, two activists from the Constitution Party will soon visit Harrisburg this week to examine the official election returns sent in by each county. They will examine the returns so that the number of write-ins for various presidential candidates who weren’t on the ballot can be known to history. Most of the counties count the write-ins and record them, but the state won’t tally them up this year, even though it did so for a few presidential write-in candidates in 2008.