The Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania - Forum

http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/07/03/pennsylvania-green-party-suspends-statewide-petition/

July 3rd, 2008

Pennsylvania Green Party state officers have suspended the statewide Green petition drive. The legal requirement is 24,666, and the Green Party only has 7,000 signatures in Pennsylvania so far. The state party officers don’t believe the state party can get 24,666 signatures. If either the Cynthia McKinney presidential campaign, or the national Green Party, could direct some financial resources to the Pennsylvania Green Party, the petition could be revived. The deadline is August 1.

The Green Party did get on the Pennsylvania ballot in 2004, when the requirement was 25,697 signatures. Pennsylvania is the 5th most populous state in the nation.
 

According to the LP.org website, there are over 47k signatures collected to date.  I don't know the last time the numbers were updated, but that is AWESOME!

Yesterday in the mail I received a copy of the nomination papers, but unfortunately will be going to DC tonight and not be back until the 8th.  I will definitely have a few signatures to be sent to Harrisburg when I get back tho, so the numbers will go up a little bit more.  I guess I'll be nice and include a check to help with the signature drive since I won't be able to get all 50 that were requested.

Have a great 4th everyone!

That sounds like a mobilization and logistics problem over a simple lack of signatures.

Brian,

You sent me looking with that bit of news.  I found it at http://www.lp.org/ballot-access (http://www.lp.org/ballot-access).  That is good news if we truly have that many in hand.  I hope it is true.  My concern is that there is a very real threat of having our nomination petitions challenged by the Republicans this year.  Carl Romanelli of the Green Party submitted something like 91,000 signatures on 2006 and the democrats successfully disqualified around 40,000 of those.  We have the rest of this month to gather additional signatures.  I hope everyone does their best to get more so we can withstand a challenge if necessary.


Excellent!  Whatever signatures you can gather are valuable and more likely to survive a challenge.  I would encourage people to gather what they can.  The 4th of July festivities are a great place to gather signatures.  People waiting for parades or the fireworks are usually approachable and agreeable when asked to sign for a presidential candidate.  We'll take whatever people can gather...two signatures, ten, twenty, whatever.

Contributions help as well.  I can assure you the cost of gathering the signatures we have thus far has put a strain on our treasury.

I truly hope we can succeed in getting Bob Barr on the ballot in Pa.

David Jahn

The Democatic candidate Barak Obama made his career in challenging signature, apparently that worked pretty well for him.  Honestly, I think the judicial system is definitely bias towards the two large parties.  I'm a registered Republican, but it makes no sense to limit people from being able to choose among the various parties.  I'm all about personal freedom and responsibility, which of course, involves having choices.  To strip people of choices is to deny them freedom.  The judicial system is not supposed to be be political, but alas.  Now believe me, of the political parties out there the Green Party is extremely far from where I believe, they are way to authoritarian for me, but they people should be given the choice to vote for them as well.  I also find it odd that they throw out write in votes if a certain threshold isn't hit.  If you want to vote for yourself as a write in for a protest vote or whatnot, that counts just as much as someone voting for someone on the ballot.  I think if you saw 500,000 people voting for candidates who were not even tallied, that would show something to the people.  Simply tossing out those votes masks that effect and is not conductive to our political system.

The Green Party did have a problem in that not everyone was thrilled with the way the presidential nominee was selected. The PA Green Party may yet endorse Ralph Nader over the nominee Cynthia McKinney for President.

Apparently Bob Barr has not been challenged anywhere he has qualified to be on the ballot yet, although states where his presence may be more problematic for major party candidates, like Pennsylvania, are still in the process of determining who will be on the ballot. At any rate, there does not seem to be a concerted national effort to keep him off the ballot.

In addition to the ballot access laws, counting and reporting write-in votes in Pennsylvania is another issue that needs to be addressed. If someone took the time to go cast a ballot for Mickey Mouse, it is fair that the election officials should record the vote and report it in the results. I know when I checked the election results from my county last year, Mickey Mouse was spelled three different ways and none of them were reported in the totals.

Mik Robertson

You can get 25 in about 40 minutes at a high traffic area.  Think flea, or farmers market, places where people are in line, etc.   Going door to door does not go well.  Use words like, "would you sign a petition to allow, more choose, not a vote, not an endorsement., etc."

Good luck.

I had heard that in New Hampshire and Massachusetts Phillies will appear as the Libertarian Party candidate in November, because no substitution is permitted and Phillies name was on the Ballot petitions. Does this cause problems or Confusion for getting votes for Barr?

Samantha

For New Hampshire that is true. The Massachuesettes Secretary of the Commonwealth stated that they would allow a substitution before Barr was selected. Now it appears they have changed their minds. It will be a court case and Barr will be on the ballot in 49 states. It really is a shame because the independent population of NH is so high. Of course Phillies was who I was rooting for before Barr showed up.

When it comes to questions like these, Richard Winger, the publisher of Ballot Access News (http://www.ballot-access.org) is the authority I go to.  He wrote articles last month addressing the debacles in Massachusetts (http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/06/10/libertarian-party-may-need-to-sue-massachusetts-to-get-bob-barr-on-ballot/#comment-424672) and New Hampshire (http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/06/19/new-hampshire-libertarian-petition-for-two-statewide-offices-is-valid/).
 
It looks like we are qualified to be on the ballot in both states, but the Libertarian Party may have to file a law suit in order to substitute our candidate for George Phillies who served as the stand in for those states.  It is always something with ballot access laws.

David Jahn

It seems likely that these issues will be resolved.  I believe George Phillies had indicated in the past he would step aside if there was another LP nominee, which there is. I don't know why he would want to stay on the ballot as the LP Presidential nominee, which is selected by the national convention not state conventions.

Mik Robertson