On July 14, U.S. District Court Judge Edward G. Smith, an Obama appointee, denied any ballot access relief to minor parties petitioning in Pennsylvania. Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania v Wolf, e.d., 5:20cv-2299. Here is the 32-page opinion.
The petitioning period in Pennsylvania for minor party and independent candidates began on February 19 and ends on August 3. The order says on page 25, “Pennsylvania has begun its process of reopening, and in-person signature collection is less burdensome.” The order also depends on the testimony of Jason Henry, Political Director for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. The Democratic Party had intervened in this case to oppose any relief. Of course, Democrats who petitioned this year for the primary did so in the period ending February 18, before the health crisis began. The order quotes Henry as saying that the absence of large gatherings is not an impediment, because signatures obtained at large gatherings tend to result in many invalid signatures. He said that petitioners can use sterilizing pens and use personal protective equipment. He said that ballot crowding “frustrates efforts to inform the electorate on differences among the candidates, places undue emphasis on ballot position, and may prevent successful candidates from winning a majority.”
The opinion mentions all the cases in other states in which ballot access relief was denied, and mostly ignores all the cases that ruled in favor of ballot access relief. The opinion even cites Acosta v Wolf, in which another U.S. District Court Judge in the eastern district of Pennsylvania ruled against ballot access relief for an independent congressional candidate. The Acosta decision is flawed because it erroneously says that the plaintiff needed 1,000 signatures. Actually he needed 5,752.
It is a myth that validity is always bad at large events. I have gotten lots of petition signatures at plenty of large events where my validity rate was in the category of what is considered to be high.
Who has two thumbs and may just vote straight Republican to spite the PA Dems?
Liberty Green, I had the same thought. Some Pennsylvanians might be so upset with the Democratic Party for trying to block voting rights that they are tempted to vote Republican. All such persons ought to express that thought publicly. The Democratic Party national convention in 1984 said that no duty of the Democratic Party was more important than protecting voting rights, yet here is the Pennsylvania Democratic trying to prevent minor party supporters from voting freely. Letters to the editor, phone calls to talk radio, etc., ought to make this point.
The Democratic Party tried to keep certain third party or independent presidential candidates off the ballot in some states in 1936, 1940, 1948, 1976, 1980, 2004, and now again in 2020.
I offered to petition for the LP of PA months ago. I even offered to go door- to-door with a walk list of registered voters, and I said I could bring a mask and even bring boxes of pens if some people were paranoid about COVID. LP of PA leadership turned down my offer. Now they may be screwed.
FYI, during this whole COVID “crisis,” there have been large petition drives that have gone on in other states. I figured that the LP would lose this case. I thought the best case scenario would be that they would lower the signature requirement and/or extend the deadline, but they did not even get this.
They would not be in this mess had they taken me up on my offer.
So someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but I always thought one of the purposes of petitioning for ballot access was that it didn’t require an expenditure of money. In other words, essentially anyone could go out and collect signatures if they choose, ie they don’t have to have thousands of dollars at their disposal to be a candidate. Now that doesn’t mean people can’t choose to spend money, but I thought that the state couldn’t force them to. Am I wrong? Because the remedies that the state and democrats were testifying for in this case, REQUIRED and expenditure of money, and a rather large one at that. They kept saying we could mail petitions to people and have them print them out (on 8 1/2 by 14 inch paper of course) and mail them back–but that requires us to spend money. Likewise, they kept harping that we could send the petition pdf via social media (again requiring the recipient to acquire 8 1/2 by 14 inch paper and print them) and then spend money mailing them back. We testified how expensive this can be.
So the state’s remedy is that we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the ballot is only open this year to parties or individuals who have that kind of money. So yeah, technically the state is correct that ballot access is NOT impossible–as the judge also claims in his order. But it is ONLY possible if we spend a shitload of money, which is what we are going to have to do I guess.
My guess is that the vast majority of Democrats won’t know that the Democratic Party blocked minor party and independent candidates from making the ballot, and the few who do know won’t care, or will even be glad that they did, and they will gleefully vote for Democrats in the general election.
With Pennsylvania being a swing state, those few Libertarian and Green Party votes suddenly going to the GOP could be very bad for the Dems. Trump narrowly won PA in 2016.
FEC, Federal Elections 2016
PENNSYLVANIA
(20 Electoral Votes)
Trump, Donald J. REP 2,970,733 48.18%
Clinton, Hillary DEM 2,926,441 47.46%
Johnson, Gary E. LIB 146,715 2.38%
Stein, Jill GRE 49,941 0.81%
Scattered W 37,239 0.60%
Castle, Darrell L. CON 21,572 0.35%
McMullin, Evan W 6,472 0.10%
Sanders, Bernie W 6,060 0.10%
Kasich, John W 302 0.00%
Kahn, Lynn W 3 0.00%
——
Total State Votes: 6,165,478
—
PA RED Donkeys still in a state of SHOCK ??? —
even about those W write-ins ???
I have a hard time seeing Greens voting for Trump.
The Democratic Governor is very unpopular, and is term limited. However, both chambers of the state legislature are Republican majority. So I don’t think the problem lies with just Democrats, when Republicans have been just as unwilling to be favorable to third parties. Pennsylvania courts have been unfavorable to minor parties for some time, with the exceptions of getting the number of signatures lowered, and the unconstitutional fines abolished.
Some hate Hillary that much, yeah. Greens are not as monolithically socialist as they party leadership that writes the platforms, controls the candidate nomination process, etc. A not insubstantial minority of Bernie Sanders supporters even thought Trump was better than Hillary and probably about 15-20% of Bernie supporters voted for Trump. Probably some Greens too.
How many LIES/promises by Biden to get LP and Green votes in ALL the 2016 battleground areas ???
Last second machinations to have even more USA Rep gerrymander district rigging of the EC
— by both RED Donkeys and BLUE Elephants ???
This is an obviously terrible court decision. If the judge was reasonable, he would have reduced the signature requirements, and/or extend the deadline, just for this election, due to the COVID scare.
The Governor made it illegal to gather signatures! A federal judge is basically telling us we should have defied a public health order. And why the hell were the Democrats involved in this case? How did they have standing, the case has nothing to do with them.
Demo Rep, not sure what you mean. Biden is out of luck no matter what he promises anyone. The democrats screwed themselves right in the donkey picking this senile fool. They will lose in PA and nationwide, big league, and Trump will win again and remain president. Just like stealing the nomination from Bernie last time and whatever stupidity they did to get Democrats to fall in line behind Biden now it will backfire if they keep trying to disenfranchise third party voters. Also, Biden corruption in Ukraine and China among other places is real and will be coming out in the fall. Lock him up.
How does that circuit look for an appeal?
Real libertarians would have defied the “order” and gathered signatures anyway. They shot themselves in the foot.
What? It’s never been up to “real libertarians.” All large events (where we typically gather signatures) have been canceled. The public had been ordered to stay at home. People have been told to socially distance. You can’t defy something that is simply not possible to do.
Door-to-door petitioning with walk lists of registered voters, which is something for which I have been advocating that the LP do a lot more of for a long time, is the way to go here.
Nothing better than to open the front door and be greeted with a sweaty, bullhorn-wielding man ranting about vaccinations, water fluoridation, illegal aliens and Zionist conspiracies.
People who live in Pennsylvania, especially in large cities, ought to ask editors of large newspapers to denounce this decision, or at least should submit op-eds for publication.
Bruce ur rite id leave door closed not anser at all and cock and load the 12 gage just in case and call 911 for sure. Like omg.
I certainly took your advice Richard, and sent a letter to the editor of my local newspaper in Harrisburg. I really think it is unfair to expect a full petition to be completed during a pandemic, when the Governor has issued a shutdown of the Commonwealth. Whether my letter is published or not remains to be seen.
This decision is hot garbage.