Republican Candidate Files Federal Challenge to Pennsylvania’s Restriction on Write-ins in Primary

Posted on by August 15, 2025

On June 26, a Republican candidate for Mayor of Lyons Borough, in Berks County, filed a federal challenge to the Pennsylvania law that says no write-in candidate in a partisan primary can be nominated if the candidate receives fewer votes than the number of signatures that would have been required to get on the primary ballot for that office. Pugh v Berks County Board of Elections, e.d., 5:25cv-3267. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge John M. Gallagher, a Trump appointee.

At the May 2025 primary, no one filed to be on either the Republican nor the Democratic primary ballot for Mayor of Lyons Borough, a very small jurisdiction. Only 41 Republicans voted in the primary in Lyons Boroough. Six of them wrote in Brandon Pugh, the plaintiff. But because he would have needed ten signatures to get on the primary ballot, the law blocked him from being on the November 2025 ballot, even though he got more votes than anyone else running for the Republican nomination.

The brief points out that when a candidate’s name is printed on a primary ballot, whoever gets the most votes wins the nomination, regardless of how few votes are received. If Pugh doesn’t win his lawsuit, no name will be on the November ballot for Mayor of Lyons Boroough. The case is pending. Here is the plaintiff’s brief.

The law was upheld in 1967 in Pennsylvania state court. UPDATE: the Pennsylvania State Elections Department filed this amicus curiae brief, which points out that many states require a minimum number of votes in primaries. The brief is a useful reference for those interested in those laws.

Comments

Republican Candidate Files Federal Challenge to Pennsylvania’s Restriction on Write-ins in Primary — 12 Comments

  1. HOW MANY COMMIE/FASCIST STATES WITH ANY MINIMUM VOTES STUFF – ESP FOR PARTY HACK PRECINCT DELEGATES ???
    —
    NOOO PRIMARIES
    PR LEGIS
    NONPARTISAN EXECS / JUDICS VIA APPV

  9. ALL ballot access laws are voter censorship and ALL should be abolished and replaced with a voter verifiable write-in only general election ballot, which would also abolish sore loser laws.

  10. No, they should be replaced with a standing count, or at least a voice vote in the meantime.

  11. @ Frank – I couldn’t agree more. Also, abolish the primaries unless the participating parties pay the entire costs for them. They are nothing but extortion to us taxpayers who are not Republican or Democrat.

  12. Parties should choose, pay for, and administer their own nomination/endorsement process, whatever they might be. And general election voting shouldn’t require the increasingly rare ability to cast spells (form and decipher Roman squiggles like these).

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