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September 7, 2008

Pa. 3rd-party candidates make cases in court

PETER JACKSON Associated Press Writer

HARRISBURG — It’s decision time for several political outsiders who want to take on establishment candidates in the Nov. 4 election.

Challenges filed against and, in one case, by third-party candidates have prompted courtroom debates over the validity of petition signatures, the fairness of filing deadlines and other issues that stand between them and the ballot.

Objections to the Democratic and Republican candidates were settled earlier this year — well in advance of the April primary in which nominations for offices ranging from state representative to president were decided.

Third-party candidates do not run in primaries. Instead, they are required to collect many more voter signatures than major-party candidates and are given months — instead of weeks — to do so. The difficulty of the task is often compounded by the candidates’ lack of money and name recognition.

Challenges are not uncommon. And because of the longer signature-gathering period, they are filed late in the campaign season.

In a case decided this week, a Commonwealth Court judge threw off the ballot an independent candidate for Congress in northwestern Pennsylvania’s 3rd District for violating the letter of the state Election Code. At the same time, the judge bemoaned the Legislature’s failure to make the code more flexible and less onerous to candidates who lack “the resources and advantages of major party affiliation.”

Senior Judge James R. Kelley commended candidate Steven Porter for his diligence in ensuring that the more than 3,200 signers of his petition signed their names and understood what they were signing. But because the law requires voters to enter their hometown and the date, Kelley disqualified more than 1,500 entries in which Porter entered some or all of that information — leaving him hundreds of signatures shy of what he needed.

“The court believes that, in this instance, this outcome is unfair and actually prohibits the well established principle that the Election Code is to be liberally construed,” Kelley wrote.

Porter, who plans to appeal, ran as a Democrat for the same seat in 2004 and 2006, but failed to unseat Rep. Phil English, R-Pa., now in his seventh term. The challenge to Porter’s current candidacy was filed by some Democratic voters who feared he would drain support from the party’s nominee.

Two pending cases involve third-party candidates for the White House.

Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman from Georgia who was a persistent critic of then-President Clinton, was picked as the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee in May. However, state party leaders waited until just before last month’s deadline to substitute Barr’s name for a placeholder candidate designated when they began gathering signatures in February.

Some Republicans have expressed concern that Barr’s candidacy could take votes away from Republican nominee John McCain.

Victor Stabile, the Cumberland County Republican Party chairman, is seeking to knock Barr off the Pennsylvania ballot on grounds that the Libertarian Party misled people who signed its petitions. Stabile has acknowledged that the election code allows such substitutions within an allotted period, but that he feels that this case “crosses the line.” A hearing in the case was held in Philadelphia on Friday.

In the other case, the Constitution Party filed suit in federal court in Harrisburg, alleging that the state’s Aug. 1 petition filing deadline is overly burdensome and unconstitutional.

The party, which failed to collect enough signatures by the deadline, is hoping to get its candidates for president — Chuck Baldwin, a Baptist minister and radio talk-show host from Florida — and vice president added to the Pennsylvania ballot.

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