On February 19, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued an opinion in In re Nomination Papers of Sherrie Cohen, 31 EAP 2019. It explained why the court had put an independent candidate for Philadelphia city council back on the ballot for the November 2019 election. The court order putting the candidate back on the ballot was issued October 3, 2019, and at the time, the court said it would explain its reasoning later. It has now done so.

The independent candidate, Sherrie Cohen, had filed to run in the May 2019 Democratic primary, but then she changed her mind and withdrew from the Democratic primary. She then filed petitions to be on the November ballot as an independent. The law says that primary candidates who withdraw from the primary within 15 days after filing may withdraw automatically, but if they withdraw more than 15 days after filing, they must get permission from a judge to withdraw. Cohen did withdraw more than 15 days after filing, but she did get permission to withdraw.

The law says that candidates who withdraw are not prohibited from being an independent candidate in November. Yet the lower courts had still kept Cohen off the ballot as an independent in November, because the lower courts felt that because she withdrew later than 15 days after filing, she was a “sore loser”. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court explains that she isn’t a “sore loser”.