On September 25, 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard arguments in Working Families Party v Commonwealth, 435 MD 2016. The issue is whether Pennsylvania’s Constitution requires the state to permit fusion. The Commonwealth Court had ruled against the Working Families Party on September 18, 2017, by a vote of 6-1. The case had been filed on August 5, 2016. One of the plaintiffs is a Democratic nominee for state legislature, who also wanted to appear on the November ballot as the Working Families nominee. Instead his ballot label was simply “Democrat”.
Pennsylvania already permits the major parties to engage in fusion. If a primary candidate wins his or her own party’s nomination and also wins the nomination of the other major party via write-ins in that party’s primary, that candidate will be listed on the November ballot as the nominee of both major parties. Every election year, several Pennsylvania legislators win both major party nominations. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.
One more CON-fusion machination or what ???
Do the HACKS with N party listings vote for the party hack platforms
100/N percent of the HACKS votes, if elected ???
IE- half communist / half fascist for an elected
Donkey/Elephant CON-fusion HACK ???
In 2016, there were 12 con-fused D/R candidates for the House. In every instance, the nominee was unopposed in his own primary, and there were no votes reported for the opposite primary on the SOC website. I did find some write-in reports on county websites. One for a D/R candidate in LD 7 (Mercer) showed him receiving 715 of 827 write-ins in the Republican primary (the result indicated he needed 300 votes to qualify as a nominee by write-in. He also received 7518 votes in the Democratic primary. He must have run an active write-in campaign. Pennsylvania permits use of rubber stamps, but Mercer County, uses touch-screen voting machines, with a virtual keyboard for write-ins. Trump carried Mercer County by 24 points (it is east of Youngstown, Ohio and it is an area where his populist message would have appeal). It would make sense for a Democratic candidate to run off Republican opponents.
Also- which HACK gangs do the multi-party CON-fusion hacks caucus with ???
Half their HACK skulls with one caucus gang ???
The other half of their HACK skulls with the other caucus gang ???
—
PR and AppV
Pennsylvania does let minor parties con-fuse with major parties. A minor party (petition) candidate can also be nominated by a majority Party by receiving write-in votes.
Chris Rabb,the plaintiff in this case, upset a long-time Democratic incumbent in the primary in an extremely Democratic district. Rabb receive 95% of the vote against the Republican candidate in the general election. Anyone can sign a candidate petition in Pennsylvania even primary voters registered with another party. Rabb could have petitioned as the Working Families candidate and then asked Democratic voters to vote for him in their primary as a write-in.
As the court pointed out, all voters were free to vote for Chris Rabb in either the primary or the general election. But elections are for the purpose of electing someone to office and not for
expression purposes.
JR —
the usual suspect gangster lawyers have been perverting the 1 Amdt expression stuff
— to get candidates and issues on ballots.
@DR,
The Mazzuzu Loophole is based on a provision in the Pennsylvania Constitution that says a voter may voter for a candidate of their choice in any election. That means a voter may always cast a write-in ballot, even in primaries.
Of course the better solution is to eliminate partisan nominations altogether.
Jim, would you know where in the Pennsylvania Constitution it says that? Thank you.
My mistake. It is in statute. This is the opinion of the Commonwealth Court:
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/pa-commonwealth-court/1874233.html
Scroll down to “Appeal of Magazzu”. I must have read that as a constitutional right when it is actually just a statutory right. The Pennsylvania election code is not in the consolidated statutes but rather in the unconsolidated statutes.
The 1937 Pennsylvania Election Act deliberately eliminated fusion voting but it also provided write-in space on all ballots which would let a voter to vote for any candidate of his choice. In the Magazzu decision the Supreme Court interpreted this to mean that a candidate could be nominated by write-in votes even though the anti-fusion provisions prevented him from running as an on-ballot candidate for more than one party. The legislature has added a requirement that a nominee must receive as many votes as would be required on a petition (300 for a House member). They have also added provisions for how a fusion nominee appears on the ballot. Pennsylvania orders candidates based on the parties preceding gubernatorial vote. For fusion candidates the parties are ordered the same way. So if there is a Democratic governor a fusion candidate would be shown as D/R and if there is a Republican governor a fusion candidate would be shown as R/D.
It appears that fusion is frequent enough that the SOC results page shows fusion candidates with an affiliation of D/R or R/D depending on who the governor is. It also appears that there are active efforts to secure fusion nomination by write-in.
How many voters are super CON-fused voting for a D/R or R/D HACK ???
What is being elected —
a half and half Donkey/Elephant MONSTER beast-thing ???
— as in Greek mythology ???