Mercer County, Pennsylvania, Election Officials Say Petition Challenges are Interfering with Ability to Print Primary Ballots

Pennsylvania holds partisan elections for state and local office every year. This year the Pennsylvania partisan primaries are on May 21. This article describes the problems in Mercer County for election officials. They would like to start printing primary ballots (overseas absentee ballots must be sent no later than April 6) but the cumbersome Pennsylvania challenge system makes that difficult this year.

In the November 2012 election, Pennsylvania was the last state to know which candidates would be on its statewide ballot. Elections officials had to print ballots for overseas voters before they knew whether the Libertarian statewide slate would be on the ballot. Those ballots were printed with the Libertarians on, but if the petition challenge against the Libertarian petition had succeeded, votes cast for Libertarians would have been invalid.

Political Science Study Shows California Top-Two Primary in 2012 Did Not Boost Moderates

This article, posted on March 27 at The Monkey Cage, is by three political scientists at the University of California, Berkeley. It uses empirical data to show that the California top-two open primary in 2012 did not boost moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans at the expense of far-left Democrats and far-right Republicans. The authors are Doug Ahler, Jack Citrin, and Gabriel Lenz.

March 2013 Ballot Access News Print Edition

Ballot Access News
March 1, 2013 – Volume 28, Number 10

This issue was printed on lavender paper.


Table of Contents

  1. ILLINOIS 5% PETITION ENJOINED AS APPLIED TO U.S. HOUSE SPECIAL ELECTIONS
  2. VIRGINIA BALLOT ACCESS BILLS PASS LEGISLATURE
  3. TOP-TWO LOSES IN MONTANA
  4. OKLAHOMA BALLOT ACCESS BILL ADVANCES
  5. NEW BALLOT ACCESS BILLS
  6. RESTRICTIVE CALIFORNIA BILL
  7. OTHER BALLOT ACCESS BILLS
  8. OTHER ELECTION BILLS
  9. INTERNATIONAL GROUP COMMENTS ON U.S. BALLOT ACCESS LAWS
  10. TOP-TWO LAWSUITS
  11. OTHER LAWSUITS
  12. BOOK REVIEW: UNITED STATES GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS 1912-1931
  13. 2014 PETITIONING FOR STATEWIDE OFFICE
  14. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RETURNS FOR 2012 ARE STILL BEING GATHERED
  15. AMERICANS ELECT LOSES PARTY STATUS IN TWO STATES
  16. AMERICAN THIRD POSITION PARTY CHANGES NAME
  17. MICHIGAN HAS AN INDEPENDENT LEGISLATOR
  18. INDEPENDENT GREEN PARTY PETITIONS TO GET LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR ON VIRGINIA BALLOT
  19. SUBSCRIBING TO BAN WITH PAYPAL