On January 13, U.S. District Court Judge Yvette Kane issued an order in Benezet Consulting v Boockvar, m.d., 1:16cv-74. This is the case filed four years ago that challenges the Pennsylvania ban on out-of-state circulators for primary petitions.

The two-page order says that the plaintiff, which is a paid petitioning company whose employees don’t live in Pennsylvania, may circulate presidential primary petitions in Pennsylvania this year. But the order is limited to just the company that filed the lawsuit. That company has already established that its Pennsylvania circulators are registered Republicans in their home states. When the case was filed in 2016, the company was busy circulating presidential primary petitions in the Pennsylvania Republican presidential primary.

Ironically, the same company is now interested in circulating Democratic presidential primary petitions in Pennsylvania. So although the court order is a victory, it is not of great practical usefulness currently. It is expected that a new lawsuit, or several, will be filed soon on this issue in Pennsylvania.

The state had defended its ban on out-of-state circulators for primary petitions, by arguing that allowing out-of-state circulators would interfere with the associational rights of the political party. In response, the plaintiffs argued that is a ridiculous argument because the circulators are members of the same party; it’s just that they live in another state.

The current state of the law will be highly difficult to enforce. Election administrators in one state don’t easily have the ability to know how an out-of-state circulator is registered. Thanks to Trent Poole for this news.