A U.S. District Court in Reading, Pennsylvania, will hold a pre-trial conference in Constitution Party v Cortes on September 22. Here is the latest brief filed by the three minor parties in the case; it was filed September 10.
The case challenges the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s unique system of requiring petitioning candidates to pay the costs of checking their signatures, if their petitions are found to lack enough valid signatures. The case also challenges Pennsylvania for failing to tally write-ins for some candidates on a completely arbitrary basis, and for failing to count any write-ins whatsoever in certain counties. Finally it challenges the state’s 15% registration membership requirement, to keep a party on the ballot. The 15% registration membership is so tough, it would even require the Utah Democratic Party, and the Massachusetts Republican Party, to submit petitions for all of their nominees, if the Pennsylvania law existed in those other two states. No party in any state, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, has ever held even 5% of any state’s registration in at least 80 years, much less 15%.
