Pennsylvania voters elect Supreme Court Justices, and Superior Court judges, on November 3, 2009, in partisan elections. The Libertarian Party has one nominee on the ballot for Superior Court Judge, Marakay Rogers. This is the first time a minor party or independent candidate has appeared on the statewide ballot in Pennsylvania in an odd year since 1993.

The party was able to place Rogers on the ballot this year because one of the Superior Court races is a special election. Pennsylvania does not require qualified parties to submit a petition in order to place a nominee on the ballot in a special election. The Libertarian Party is the only “qualified” statewide party in Pennsylvania, other than the Democrats and Republicans. It has that status because it polled more than 2% of the highest vote-getter’s vote for a statewide office in 2008. Normally, “qualified” status doesn’t mean much, because another Pennsylvania election law says “qualified” parties must be treated as though they weren’t qualified unless they have registration membership of over 1,000,000 voters. But, the law makes an exception for special elections, and the Libertarian Party has put that loophole to good use this year.

The last time a minor party had a nominee for one of the partisan statewide judicial races in an odd year was 1993. The Patriot Party placed Robert Surrick on the ballot for Supreme Court Justice. He polled 112,820 votes, or 5.38%.

CNN on October 2 ran a short segment titled, “Time Ripe for Third Party?”, triggered by media interest in Rick Nagin’s run-off for a city council set in Cleveland. Nagin associates himself with the Democratic Party but is also a member of the Communist Party and a reporter for the party’s newspaper. The election is November 3, 2009. The segment also features Bob Barr, and refers to strong independent gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Thanks to Jared Cowing for the link.

On October 2, a New York State Supreme Court in Rensselaer County invalidated 33 absentee votes cast in the Working Families Party primary of September 15, 2009. See this story. The case is Lambertsen v Bugbee, 230629. The Working Families Party primary was a battle between some Republican candidates versus some Democratic candidates, for County Legislature and Troy City Council. There were no WFP members running in that primary. The 33 absentee ballots were found fraudulent, filed in the names of voters who never received the ballots (and in most cases, had not even requested absentee ballots).

It appears that one or two Democratic Party partisans are responsible for the fraud, but no criminal charges have been filed yet against anyone.