Pennsylvania holds statewide partisan elections for judicial offices on November 7, 2017. Voters will be asked to vote for four candidates for Superior Court, which is a statewide office. The Green Party petitioned for Jules Mermelstein for that office, and submitted 4,300 signatures. The requirement for that office for general election petitions is 2,500. No one challenged Mermelstein’s petition, so he will be on the ballot. The only other candidates are four Democrats and four Republicans.
The petition requirement for this office is lower than it has in the past, as a result of the U.S. District Court decision last year in Constitution Party v Cortes. The new requirements for statewide general election petitions, which were negotiated but not yet approved by the legislature, are 5,000 for the more important offices, and 2,500 for less important offices.
Is this the first time to your knowledge that any minor party has put someone on the statewide ballot in PA in an odd numbered year?
No, it is not. It was common for third parties to have nominees on the ballot in odd year statewide judicial elections before 1986, because before 1986, parties were fully ballot-qualified if they polled 2% of the winner’s vote for any statewide race. So there were various minor parties that could freely run in any partisan election they wished without difficulty. In 1986 the legislature utterly ruined that, and said a party is only fully ballot-qualified if it has registration of 15% of the state total, over 1,000,000 members.
Even under the current law, in special elections, minor parties that polled at least 2% of the winner’s vote in the last election can be on with no petition. In 2009 there was a special election for Judge of the Superior Court, so the Libertarian Party was on for that. Marakay Rogers got 127,492 votes, which was 8.05%. But in 2017 there are no special statewide elections. All the judicial 2017 elections are regularly-scheduled, so they need petitions.
NONPARTISAN elections for all elected executive/judicial officers.
Partisan monsters in legislative bodies is quite bad enough.
Thanks Richard!