Earlier this year, independent candidate Paul Panepinto submitted a petition to be on the November 3, 2015 ballot for Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice, a statewide partisan office. August 11 was the deadline for anyone to challenge his petition, but no one did so, so he is on the ballot. He is the first candidate to run outside the two major parties for that office since 1993.
Chances are, since he is a former Republican local judge, the Republican Party would have challenged his petition if it had not been for last month’s court decision invalidating Pennsylvania’s challenge system.
Doesn’t Pennsylvania still have the challenge process? I thought that the only thing that the court ruling did in regard to the challenge process was say that candidates who lose challenges will not have to pay the cost of the challenge.