On August 2, Daily Kos reported that conservatives are responsible for paying “all but $30” of the costs for getting the Pennsylvania Green Party statewide candidates on the ballot. The truth is that Pennsylvania Green volunteers got 30,000 signatures (just as they did in 2004, when the party got on with an all-volunteer effort), and the remaining 65,000 signatures were paid circulators.

The $30 relates to the bank account of the Luzerne County Greens. There have been plenty of monetary contributions from Pennsylvania Greens themselves to their own ballot drive, but it went into the state party’s bank account.

Daily Kos should consider that the real motivation of the conservative donors who contributed to the paid petition effort was not so much to get the Green Party on the ballot, as to trick the Democrats into acting like a bully. The Democratic Party of Pennsylvania has fallen into this trap, with the announcement today that the party will challenge the Green petitions. In 2002, the Pennsylvania Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Ed Rendell, actually signed the statewide Green Party petition, to show that the Democratic Party of Pennsylvania was confident, open-minded, and not afraid of competition. Rendell was elected. The face of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party in 2006 has changed.

On August 2, the Oregon Secretary of State said that the initiative to change Oregon’s system to the “top-two” method did not have enough valid signatures. Therefore, it will not appear on the November 2006 ballot. The proposal would have required all candidates for all partisan office (except president) to run on a single primary ballot in May. Then, in November, only the two highest vote-getters would have been able to be on the ballot. Thanks to Steve Rankin for this news.

On August 2, the state chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party said that the Democrats will challenge the Green statewide petition. This is only the second time in the last 60 years that any minor party or statewide petition has been challenged in Pennsylvania; the first time was in 2004, when Democrats challenged Nader’s independent petition.