Pennsylvania Bill to Let Candidates on Primary Ballots If They Pay Very Large Fees

Posted on by February 3, 2025

In Pennsylvania, candidates seeking a spot on a primary ballot must submit petitions. Representative Seth Grove (R-Dover Township) has introduced HB 115, which would give primary candidates an alternative method of running. They would not need a petition if they paid a filing fee. Candidates for statewide office would pay $38,500. Candidates for U.S. House would pay $10,000; for State Senate, $5,000; for State Representative, $3,000.

Comments

Pennsylvania Bill to Let Candidates on Primary Ballots If They Pay Very Large Fees — 30 Comments

  3. Maybe someone will ask for a Judge’s opinion on the price to meet the state’s compelling interest. Is this a tax for revenue? Or is this tax for censorship? Do these fees make political paupers of certain types of candidates to the advantage of other types of candidates who are more affluent?
    Abolish all ballot access laws and replace them with a content neutral write-in only voter verifiable ballot, aka the Liberty Ballot.

  4. Abolish all ballots and replace them with standing counts, aka Liberty Counts.

  5. Or if you must have ballots, let other people print them please. I heard it used to be that way over a century ago.

  6. A.C.

    PRIVATE BALLOTS [OFTEN COLORED] BEFORE 1888-1890 OFFICIAL PRIMARY BALLOTS

    USE WRONG COLORED BALLOT >>> GET PURGED VIA SPIES WATCHING BALLOTS BEING CAST

  8. “if you must have ballots, let other people print them please. I heard it used to be that way over a century ago.”

    Indeed, but apparently some people thought to sneak in extra ballots, and voters might object to a sufficiently thorough search to ensure that wouldn’t happen, in addition to the logistical difficulties of full cavity searching that many people.

  9. Hurray! Someone gets it. They finally figured out how to give options to candidates that actually benefit the taxpayers.

  10. They could also just auction off government offices, government jobs, government contracts, naming rights to government anything and everything, etc.

  13. It’s working out pretty well with Canada, Mexico, and the rest of the Americas so far.

  14. During the era when the US grew from a handful of rebellious colonies populated by about 2-3 million people on the edge of civilization to the world’s greatest power, tariffs were the dominant means by which the federal government was financed.

  15. MAAA – HIGH TARIFFS — ESP ON SLAVE STATE IMPORTS [FOR STUFF IN SLAVE MANSIONS] = ANOTHER EXCUSE FOR 1861 CIVIL WAR I BY SLAVERS
    ———–
    https://electionlawblog.org/?p=148462

    NY – JEFFRIES – DELAY SPEC ELECTION IN R USA REP DIST
    —
    CANDIDATE/INCUMBENT REPLACEMENT LISTS

  18. Like any other form of taxation, tariffs can get too high. The Yankee states hated negroes, didn’t want them counted in the census, didn’t want them in the western territories, and proposed deporting them en masse, willing or not, to Africa.

    Taking people’s legally owned property which was a large part of their household income without compensation is just as morally wrong as chattel slavery, and that is why Yankees are damned and cursed as Damn Yankees to this very day.

    If the South would have won we’d have had it made, and if at first you don’t secede try and try again.

  20. Southern secession? Paying reparations with interest for the theft of the slaves and the other damage incurred to other property during the illegal Yankee invasion? Tariffs? Deporting illegals and those harboring them? Auctioning off government? I guess we could take advantage of all these idea’s!

  22. I’d love standing counts. I got dylexisa and bad memory and I don’t read so good. Looking at ballot’s gives me headache’s.

  23. Any ballot with commies/fascists is NOT good reading.

    ANY HIGHEST BIDDER LAWS FOR BALLOT ACCESS YET ???

  24. Auction off ballot spots, ballot orders, party label’s – everything must go!

  25. @Stan,

    A Texas senator is proposing to going back to precinct voting with paper ballots. He might be interested in your ideas.

  27. Under a 1903 Texas law, each party would print its own ballot, according to strict requirements as to size, paper color, print type, etc. For each office, the ballot would have the party’s candidate, and a write-in space. They would not distribute the ballots, but would give them to election officials.

    At the polling place, a voter would be given a ballot from each party and take them to a voting booth. You would select one and discard the others. You would then mark the ballot. You might vote for every candidate of your party, or you might write in the name of another party’s candidate or that of an “independent”. You would deposit your ballot in the ballot box.

    So it was a hybrid of the old system where you would bring your own ballot (likely provided to you by a political party) and edited with your own choices and the future Australian ballot where you were provided a single ballot with “all” the candidates for each office.

    This system was only used in 1904. In 1905, effectively all the party ballots were stitched together in a party column ballot, with the write-in space moved to its own column. The 1905 law also added the party primary (or convention) system to choose the candidates of each party.

    But imagine we would go back to the 1903 system – but instead of each party printing its own ticket, each candidate would pay a fee to have their name printed on a ballot. Let’s say a fee of $0.01 for each ballot. In Texas, this would be $113,886 for every ballot in the state. The fee might be based on the number of ballots printed, with a refund given for any that were unused.

    Perhaps there could be alternatives. One signature per one dollar fee. Or maybe $10 for one hour picking up litter, sweeping streets, washing windows of government buildings, etc. Or maybe $100 for a full day.

  28. @Stan,

    He is unlikely to be aware of your ideas. It would better to communicate with him directly, if you want them to be used.

  30. I’m not that interested in specific legislation. My ideas are not likely for immediate implementation. If you know of someone who may be interested, you can point them to these discussions, but legislators are constrained by standing court precedents, so my ideas will have to wait for a different federal legal context.

    I wouldn’t count them out, however – Elon Musk and JD Vance are among those intrigued by the views of Curtis Yarvin et al, and the punctuated equilibrium model of change will give them an opening, perhaps sooner than you might find plausible – but not immediately.

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