This article explains that candidates for Delegate to the Republican national convention from Pennsylvania petition directly onto the primary ballot, independently of presidential candidates. Voters choose the delegates after voting for President. The article explains that many candidates for delegate are likely to face petition challenges. They each need 250 signatures. The constitutionality of the residency requirement for primary circulators is pending in federal court and is not settled yet.
ALL of the States are EVIL and VICIOUS minority rule gerrymander oligarchy regimes.
I.E. the hacks in the gerrymander State legislatures will fix whatever it takes to have the monster national conventions with the robot stooge hack delegates for the various demagogue Prez candidates.
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
It is not clear what the actual challenges were based on. I could only find the docket sheets, and not the actual complaint, and the petition sheets aren’t online.
Typically the docket sheet would have a court order directing the objector to get together with the candidate and come to an agreed set of valid and invalid signatures, so that those that were in dispute could be the focus of a hearing. And then there would be a notation that the hearing had been cancelled.
Since there were instance in the story about several candidates being knocked off the ballot, it may be that their petitions really were incomplete.
It did not suit MSNBC’s narrative to really investigate.
Isn’t it way past the deadline for challenges to major party petitions in Pennsylvania? The PA primary is this week.
@Andy,
The challenges were in late February, with hearings scheduled in early March. In Pennsylvania, objections are tried in court. After the objector files their objection, the court orders them to inform the candidate, and that they should come up with a spreadsheet of signatures that they agree on (as either being valid or invalid). The court can then concentrate on signatures that there is a disagreement over.
It appears that in 9 cases, the candidate withdrew rather than contest the objection. In the MSNBC story, one of the candidates said that the Trump campaign had arranged for all circulators. If so, it would seem odd that they would not back him up when challenged.
176 candidates filed (in 18 congressional districts), 4 were rejected, 1 withdrew voluntarily (but will be on the ballot as an alternate), and 9 withdrew after being challenged.
The withdrawals were heavily concentrated in the three congressional districts that are heavily Democratic (PA-1, PA-2, in Philadelphia, and PA-14 in Pittsburgh). 18 filed, and 10 will appear on the ballot (56%). In PA-1 and PA-14 all three candidates will be elected, in PA-2, 3 of 4 will be elected.
In remaining 15 districts, 154 of 158 filers (97.5%) will be on the ballot, and one of those voluntarily withdrew. In some districts, there are 15 candidates on the ballot for 3 delegate positions.
So there are a couple of possibilities. (1) It is a lot harder to find candidates for Republican delegate in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and also hard to find 250 Republicans to sign a petition. Some of the candidates may have been flakes; (2) With few candidates, it might be worthwhile to challenge candidates to assure victory.