On June 9, the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania and the Green Party of Pennsylvania, and their gubernatorial nominees, filed a federal lawsuit against several Pennsylvania ballot access laws. The case challenges the ban on out-of-state circulators, and the requirement that each signer show the year of signing in the “date” column, and the requirement that each sheet be notarized, and the requirement that does not permit residents of two different counties to sign the same sheet. Green Party of Pennsylvania v Aichele, 2:14cv-3299, eastern district.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Court judge Thomas O’Neill, Jr., a Reagan appointee.
It’s about freaking time. Now if only there were people in New York, Connecticut, and a few other states that would file law suits like this.
A lawsuit in Connecticut appears to be in the works.
I agree, there is no longer any legal basis to support in-state witness restrictions. Any state that imposes these restrictions ought to be subject to an immediate suit. Pennsylvania also imposes an additional battery of ancient nit-picky requirements for which the Commonwealth no longer can articulate a compelling governmental or substantial regulatory interest.
The dawn of centralized computer voter registration data-bases required to be installed in each state under the National Voter Registration Act, renders most of the pre-computer age restrictions on nomination paper signatures unconstitutional.
Paul Rossi, Esq.
Here’s another article on the case — perhaps from a slightly different perspective:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/06/11/68625.htm
We won on the “wrong county sheet” issue in Maryland in Nader v. State Board of Elections, 399 Md. 681 (2007). It was the sole contested issue in that case, and the decision was based on state constitutional grounds.