The Observer-Reporter, daily newspaper in Washington, Pennsylvania, has this editorial, calling for easier ballot access for minor parties and independent candidates in Pennsylvania. The editorial criticizes the state government for saying it will appeal the ballot access victory won last month.
Similar editorials have been published recently in Philadelphia and Lancaster.
It’s fine for the editorial to call the harsh restrictions plainly unfair and undemocratic but it is too charitable to offer that Judge Stengle’s ruling ought to be considered (giving cover to the hypocrisy of Dems on voter issues) because of a desire to elicit a clarification on whether the awful restrictions are unconstitutional because of the strenuous requirements generally or the imposition of unwarranted legal bills is the sole real offense.
Most know that kind of justice almost never happens with respect to ballot access issues. What’s much likelier is another ruling to reverse. That’s the universe we’re in.
The editorialist could have acknowledged the ongoing extreme injustice to formal political minorities as central to explanation of all this, the occasional vague judicial rulings being the exception.