From Richard Winger at Ballot Access News:
On April 26, the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties asked a U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania to put them on the November 2016 ballot, on the basis that the old ballot access law was declared unconstitutional last year, and the legislature has not passed a new one. Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Aichele, e.d., 12-cv-2726.
The parties are requesting a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction. Such requests are usually handled very quickly.
The same parties, as well as the Socialist Party, obtained similar relief in Ohio in 2008. The old Ohio law had been declared unconstitutional in September 2006 and the legislature had not passed a new law as of 2008, so a U.S. District Court put the four parties on the November ballot. They not only remained on in 2010, but 2012 and 2014 as well.
Right, also the requirement that the year had to be included when the signer wrote the date.
The situation here has improved, but it still sucks the hairy one
I believe the previous court case threw out 3 or 4 aspects of the law. One was the requirement that petition pages had to be notarized, another was the ban on out-of-state petition circulators, another was the requirement for the losers of a challenge to pay a fine, and i can’t recall the other off hand (if there was another).
It seems likely the judge will rule against us. The challenge system looks DOA, but the onerous number of signatures appears likely to be upheld.
any word on how this went today?
That would be awesome. I’ve heard rumors that the LP is behind schedule on signature gathering there.
UPDATE: Hearing May 16th in Philly.
http://ballot-access.org/2016/05/02/u-s-district-court-sets-hearing-on-whether-to-put-three-minor-parties-on-pennsylvania-ballot/
As I said over at BAN, this is probably the only way the CP will appear on the PA ballot this year. I am fairly confident the LP and the GP can petition their way on if they have to since the requirement is fairly small relative to past years. It would be nice to get injunctive relief for once!
Good luck! It would be nice if this got some media attention.
Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help.
Ballot Access is an important issue!
Good luck on the lawsuit!