The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has this story about the order of a U.S. District Court of June 30, setting the statewide petition requirement in Pennsylvania this year at exactly 5,000. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has this story.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has this story about the order of a U.S. District Court of June 30, setting the statewide petition requirement in Pennsylvania this year at exactly 5,000. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has this story.
Nice job Oliver!
Has the LP already collected enough signatures? I know they were already conducting a ballot drive before this ruling.
The LP has already finished this petition. The Green Party probably has 3,000 and is now hard at work on finishing it. The Constitution Party only had about 500 signatures last week, but believes it can also complete the petition and is working on it.
All three parties have nominees for the 3 statewide state offices, so they need to comply with the distribution requirement. But if they don’t, the presidential and US Senate candidates are ok, because the county distribution requirement doesn’t apply to those offices.
Are any other minor parties trying to qualify?
As far as I know, only Rocky De La Fuente is trying.
I have been told the Socialist Party is also attempting. They have a U.S. House candidate, and are attempting to qualify the presidential ticket as well.
The Green Party, as far as I know, is not fielding a U.S. Senate candidate.
Thanks for the information, Jeremy. I was hoping the Drys would give it a shot. I find it somewhat surprising the Socialists would try but not the SWP.
Pennsylvania has a sore loser law, so because De La Fuente was on the ballot in the primary he cannot be in the general.
Pennsylvania’s sore loser law has never been applied to presidential candidates. And it doesn’t say anything about being on the ballot in the primary; it just talks about whether a primary petition was presented (sec. 2911(e)). John Anderson circulated a primary petition in 1980 in Pennsylvania and he still got on the November 1980 ballot as an independent. Ditto for Theodors Roosevelt in 1912.
Pennsylvania didn’t have a gubernatorial primary until 1922. The presidential primary was new in 1912, and Teddy Roosevelt won in Pennsylvania. It is quite unlikely that they had a sore loser law at the time.
Pennsylvania law provided for primaries for Governor and other partisan office starting in 1906. He is a wikipedia article that mentions the 1914 gubernatorial election and mentions the Republican incumbent expected a primary challenge, although it didn’t materialize.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_gubernatorial_election,_2014