On January 25, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ordered Carl Romanelli to pay $80,408 within 30 days. Since Romanelli has very few assets, the order also makes Romanelli’s attorney, Larry Otter, equally liable for the money.

Carl Romanelli was the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate last year from Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, petitions are assumed to be valid, unless someone challenges them. Democrats challenged Romanelli’s petition. The Pennsylvania challenge procedure is handled by courts, not elections administrators, so Romanelli is being billed $48,285 in fees for Democratic Party attorneys, $25,481 in court costs, $5,141 in copying and stenography fees and $1,500 for handwriting experts. Romanelli had submitted 95,000 signatures to meet a requirement of 67,070, but only 58,000 of those signatures were considered valid. He will appeal this decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He also has an appeal pending in the U.S. Supreme Court over the procedures used for checking signatures in the challenge process.

On February 16, the U.S. Supreme Court conference will consider whether to take any of these election law cases: (1) Lopez Torres v N.Y. State Board of Elections; (2) Romanelli v Election Board; (3) Protect Marriage Illinois v Orr.

The New York case was won in the court below; the other two cases were lost in the courts below. Lopez Torres concerns ballot access onto a primary ballot. The Romanelli case challenges Pennsylvania’s procedures for rejecting signatures on petitions. Protect Marriage challenges Illinois procedures for rejecting signatures on initiative petitions.

On January 21, the Georgia Green Party issued a press release titled, “Georgia Green Party Kicks Off Ballot Access Drive for 2008”. The release says, for the first time, the party will attempt to qualify as a statewide party. That will require 44,089 valid signatures, to be collected between April 2007 and July 2008.

Across the U.S., only one higher ballot access barrier has ever been overcome by a state Green Party. That was the California registration drive in 1991, which required the party to persuade 79,188 people to register into the party. Even the Texas Green 2000 petition didn’t need as many signatures as will be needed in Georgia; the Texas 2000 petition drive required 37,381 signatures.

However, if the Georgia Greens can succeed, the rewards for them will be great. Once the petition is complete, the party will probably be able to remain ballot-qualified (for statewide office only, since the statewide petition only affects statewide offices) indefinitely into the future. A statewide party in Georgia remains on the ballot as long as it polls a number of votes equal to 1% of the statewide registration. Since Georgia usually elects 9 or 10 statewide officers in mid-term years, any diligent party can poll the needed votes for at least one of those offices. In presidential years there are always one, two or three races for Public Service Commissioner, another office for which voters are generous to minor parties with their votes.

It is true that the Georgia Reform Party failed to poll enough votes to retain its place on the ballot in 1998, but that is because the party foolishly only ran a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, when it could have just as easily run as many as nine other statewide candidates, one of which surely would have polled enough votes.