August 3 was the Pennsylvania deadline for minor party and independent candidate petitions. Both the Green Party and the Libertarian Party submitted more than twice as many signatures as were required. The requirement was 5,000. Libertarians submitted slightly over 10,000, and Greens submitted approximately 15,000.
Most of those were collected in the five days from the lost appeal until the deadline. Both parties are to be commended for getting so many signatures in such a short time. I’m happy that I will have a real choice come November.
One question that comes to mind here is how long will it take before we get official word that Jorgensen and Hawkins will be on the PA ballot. (I have the same question with respect to the Maryland and Wisconsin turn ins that occurred on the same day) I assume there has to be some type of validity check for the signatures, unless the state decides that with the sheer volume of signatures submitted, that it is so likely that there are enough valid that they won’t even bother.
Also, I’m mildly surprised that the Green Party submitted ~50% more signatures than the LP did. I tend to perceive the LP as being better at petitioning than any other “minor” party. Maybe that’s not really the case.
Tripling the requirement for the Greens seems like overkill to me. They should make the ballot though.
Turning in more signatures does not necessarily mean better at petitioning. If you turn in less signatures, but your validity rate is higher, you still make the ballot, and at a point, a higher validity rate is more impressive than a larger number of signatures.
Also, it should be pointed out that a Republican PAC or group paid a bunch of money to mercenary petitioners to collect signatures for the Greens, with the hope of siphoning votes from Democrats in PA. This Republican PAC/group was paying petitioners $10 per signatures on the Green Party petition in PA, not including petition coordinator overrides.
The LP did not get help from any other group.
Quantity doesn’t always mean quality. And there is no check, unless there is a challenge. Which there likely will be since pa and wi are swing states now. Wi only requires voters to be eligible, not registered, to sign. Pa requires line by line challenges must be disputed in front of a judge in court, a particularly arduous and ridiculous process.
Tripling is no guarantee when there is zero quality control and multilevel gathering ending up with street people and the reserve army of the unemployed earning their daily bread and opiate of the people on the rough side of Philly.
“One question that comes to mind here is how long will it take before we get official word that Jorgensen and Hawkins will be on the PA ballot.”
My understanding is that there is a one week period for people to review and challenge the petitions.
I seem to recall seeing Friday mentioned as the challenge deadline in Wisconsin.
Great job, guys!
The LP really rocked it out in PA. Much love.