August 1 is the Pennsylvania deadline for petitions for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties. The Green Party did not obtain the needed 16,639 signatures, according to this story. The party only has 14,000 signatures on hand.
Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Alabama, California, and New Mexico will be the five states this year with a complete Democratic-Republican ballot monopoly for all statewide offices. Although the New Hampshire deadline is not until August 6, the Libertarian petition for U.S. Senate in that state will not succeed.
This is the third midterm year in a row in which Pennsylvania voters will not have anyone to vote for, for statewide office, except the Democratic and Republican nominees. The only other states for which this is true are New Mexico and Alabama.
More strategic thinking and better ballot access planning are needed by the “third” parties. There is no excuse for coming this close and failing, except that we all tend to go into a “ballot access slumber” between presidential elections. And who could blame us? By the time ballot access is over in September of a presidential election year, we’ve spent so much, worked so hard, and been so stressed out that we just want to forget about petitioning. But then a bunch of poor volunteers have to eat their sigs because somebody at the top of the party was asleep at the ballot access wheel.
1. Separate is NOT equal.
2. Every election is NEW.
3. Thus – EQUAL ballot access tests for ALL candidates for the SAME office in the SAME area.
Difficult ONLY for the armies of MORON lawyers and judges since 1968 – Williams v. Rhodes.
I assume the Libertarians didn’t get enough either then?
That’s really unfortunate. Well, at least the Greens still have Howie Hawkins in NY, and some congressional candidates like Paula Bradshaw and Nancy Wade in Illinois.
Illinois might end up being the sixth state if the courts bow to Darth Madigan and the Republicans succeed in knocking off the Libertarians.
I think Ken Krawchuk gave up weeks ago. He is pinning his hopes on a lawsuit.
Although PA Greens were a few thousand signatures short for the statewide candidates, they did successfully file for three state house candidates.
The party leadership was not “asleep at the wheel”, but the importance and urgency of collecting did not reach the ranks.
Enough is enough. For the third time PA voters won’t have a choice in who becomes a governor. The Green and the Libertarians need to run a boycott campaign! The voters deserve better then this.
Richard:
Since Jim Clymer ran for U.S. Senate getting around 4% has the Pennsylvania petitioning situation become worse than before? After all, twice in the 1990’s the Taxpayer’s Party candidate for Governor Peg Luksik won over 10%. Also, other than in Maine and Minnesota how many other small party/Independent candidates for Governor or U. S. Senate received 5% or more since 1990?
I think there has been an assault on third parties over the years that has been very successful in reducing ranks, increasing apathy, and framing politics as just a two-party system. So, it is sad we didn’t make it in PA for governor, but I don’t blame it on our organization, but on a well-funded duopoly media, especially in PA, that effectively shuts us out and labels us as merely spoilers, not serious candidates.
There is legislation we’ve been working hard to put in front of state senate leadership – but they have no incentive or pressure to make it move, even if it’s the right thing to do and would make it a lot less onerous for independents and third parties to get on the ballot.