What's this BS I'm hearing about the GOP trying to kick us off the ballot? How did the suite even get filed? Wasn't the deadline for this sort of thing last week?

This is what I thought was going on. Don't all 3rd parties in PA do this? In any case it's how we have always done it as far back as I can remember.

"The election code provides only one official time that the committee to fill vacancies acts, and the BCEL has never disagreed with any third party's committee performing substitution of federal candidates after filing."

So the LPPA is being challenged for obeying the law? When this gets thrown out as having no merit can we counter sue for court costs?

Anyone besides me think this challenge is a good thing? 

http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1219270213217690.xml&coll=1

This is not, I'll admit, the clearest of parallels that they are trying to draw.  Let me share how I interpret their comparison. 

Gerrymandering changes political district boundaries for political advantage.  The lawsuit seeks to change candidate substitution rules for political advantage.

In an even broader context, Barry is on to something.  The Barr challenge.  Bonusgate. The undeniable bias against political choice in PA. The pay-raise.  These are all glaring examples that the political establishment and its complicit bureaucracy care nothing about the interests of PA. They only care about their own self-preservation and will act in that capacity at-any-cost. 

At some point, each new revelation opens the eyes of more people.  I’m not sure what the critical mass for real change is, but CleanSweep (retirements, challengers, No on Nigro, etc.) seemed to say that it might be attainable. 

Mark

Mik, this sounds like a good bases for an LTE to the Patriot.  Did you fire one off? {;-)

--Harold

Everyone,

I've been communicating much with Andrew Davis of the Barr campaign. He told me that the order to get Bob off the ballot came from someone "hi up" in the McCCP campaign. Thus the reason the hearing is being held in Philly and they've hired some very expensive Philly lawyers.  Stabile is a sock puppet. The McCCP campaign is out for blood! This is serious! We must constantly remind people that Bush did this very same thing to McCCP in NY in 2000. McCCP accused Bush of Stalinist politics.  What a fucking hypocrite! This guy is NO American hero at all in any way!!!

A little more background on this objection to the substitution certificate for Bob Barr...

This appears to be the first time anyone has made this particular objection. There are a couple of cases that address the time frame to file the nomination papers and the Anderson case from 1980 does say that to not allow for the substitution of candidates would lead to an unreasonable result.

The objection is based on intent. Did we intend to mislead and fraudulently represent the presidential candidate to the signers of the nomination papers after Barr was nominated in Denver on May 25, resulting in a subversion of the electoral process?

The answer is clearly no. Our intent all along was to place Libertarian Party candidates on the ballot, and all of our papers were circulated with a duly nominated presidential candidate on the papers and a Committee to Fill Vacancies clearly identified on every page.

The Libertarian Party had no recognized status under the PA election laws. There are only three ways to nominate candidates; by political party, which we are not, by minor political party, which we are not, and by political body, which is a collection of "qualified" voters of the Commonwealth. The "Libertarian Party" was not recognized under the election laws until those nomination papers were filed. If Ralph Nader had filed papers that called the political body "Libertarian Party" before we did, he would have been the Libertarian Party nominee on the ballot.

As it was, once the papers were filed, the presidential candidate withdrew, and Bob Barr was substituted, in accordance with the provisions of the PA election code. The Commonwealth cannot say we are not a political party then penalize us for not being a political party, which would happen if the objector prevails.

Also, it cannot be the case that the election code would create different conditions for different political bodies based on the arbitrary dates of national conventions. If the objector prevails, Ralph Nader would have had about 150 days to collect signatures to gain ballot access, we would have had about 60 days, and the Green Party, who had their convention in July, would have had about 20 days to get a presidential nominee on the ballot.

The real subversion of the electoral process lies in the objection itself. The Commonwealth has already created unequal election laws by creating different classes of nominees. At least for each class of nominee, including all political bodies, the rules should be consistent.

The objection is very weak, but that does not mean it cannot prevail. If it does prevail, there would be no way we could comply with the election laws for a presidential election if a nominee were selected after August 1 (OK - we can't do that anyhow, which shows the inequality of the PA election laws). As we can see this year, there are political parties which did not have a nominee by August 1. It would force all other political organizations into a different standard than independent candidates, which cannot be the way the law currently stands.

The objection is a thinly veiled attempt to remove a political rival from the ballot. The court should find the objection to be the frivolous and should further find it to be the subversion of the electoral process that it is. The fact that several Pittsburgh and Philadelphia lawyers have come in on the side of the objector indicates this case was not initiated by a county R chairman. Is Commonwealth Court being mislead?

My thoughts,
Mik

Do we have a release ready for the outcome of this?  As many as possible need to be aware about Friday's hearing.