A Pennsylvania Republican Party leader has filed suit to have Libertarian Party presidential candidate removed from the state ballot.
Cumberland County GOP chairman Victor Stabile, an attorney, complained to the Commonwealth Court that Barr supporters misled people who signed their ballot petitions because they listed Rochelle Etzel of Clarion County as the presidential candidate even after the national party picked Barr at its convention in May.
Stabile acknowledged that state election laws allow such substitutions as long as they are made within the allotted time, but said he thinks this case “crosses the line.” “I don’t like to see anything taint that process,” he said.
Since state law allows from substitutions, and major parties have yet to nominate their own candidates and will be safely on the ballot, it is expected that the case will be dismissed for lacking merit.
Well, it appears that the GOP finally broke the tradition of not trying to toss third party candidates for president off the ballot.
Good to know both of PA’s major parties are corrupt and anti-democratic.
you knew this was coming. The first time the Libertarian Party challenges the status quo and bam ! I so hate this duopoly
Richard,
Did the CP make the Penn ballot?
Yes, it is not surprising to hear this coming from Pennsylvania. Someone obviously fears that they are going to lose an election there…
Trent:
The CP’s ballot status in PA is in dispute.
What sort of “dispute”?
I don’t know. I just know what it says on the Ballot Access Chart.
Glaivester,
I can read charts.
I want to know what SORT of dispute.
As do I.
The Constitution Party was planning to turn in another 4,000 signatures after the Aug 1 deadline, and sue against the deadline. But they should have done that by Friday. I keep e-mailing Gary Odom whether they did, and he doesn’t respond. The deadline is very susceptible to challenge because the legislature never passed it. Similar to the Ohio situation this year for the Libertarians.
Seems like the LP has had this problem in several states, has substitution been such an issue in past elections?
In a close race, members in both major parties will try to eliminate non-major party candidates from the ballot.
Democrats did so against Nader in 2004 and it would seem Republicans may do so against Bar in 2008.
I do not hope their are people here who realize that this does not set well with many members in both parties, who want to advance election law reforms but neither party has a group to advance such matters.
Actually, I just read a Texas newspaper on the web (forgot which one) where a high ranking state Republican Rep called three Libertarian candidates and asked them to drop out of very close state House races so they wouldn’t split the vote and let the Democrats win. The Dem/Reps just don’t seem to grasp the fact that we aren’t in it for fun and couldn’t care less what happens to the two main parties.
Wow! I was trying to decide between Barr and Baldwin and figured I would let the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania do it for me. I thought I would wait and see if one of them failed to get on the ballot which would make my decision easier. Now it is possible I won’t have the chance to vote for EITHER of them. That really sucks! I am not sure I can vote for Nader or McKinney. Oh well, I can always write-in Ron Paul and not have that count either.
This lawsuit is total BS. The LPPA has always used a stand in. As far as I know we couldn’t change the name after the convention anyway without invalidating all the pre convention signatures. This is just an illegal attempt to cut our petitioning window.
My experience with Pennsylvania election law (a few years back) was that they would follow the LPPA bylaws and the PA statutes. I don’t think that there is any language in either that requires using the national party convention choice on nomination papers.
The following is a statement from the chair of the LPPA:
Having done a cursory review of a copy of the text of the petition, without access to any attachments or exhibits, it appears this entire claim is based on intent. The claim is it was the intent to deceive the signers by continuing to circulate papers with Rochelle Etzel’s name after Bob Barr won the National LP nomination. The claim is it is a violation of 25 P.S. section 2912 regarding contents of nomination papers; restrictions on names; and campaign finance. The claim is that the provision that the papers include “the name of the candidate nominated therein” (the political body which the candidates nominated represent) was intentionally misrepresented after the convention. It is claimed the president and VP names on the papers should have been changed to Barr and Root after the convention and to not change them intentionally misled the signers into thinking Rochelle was the presidential nominee.
The political body was clearly identified as the Libertarian Party on the nomination papers. The LP bylaws clearly state presidential nominees are selected at the national convention. Included as exhibits are copies of the LP bylaws (possibly LPPA bylaws as well), LP convention minutes describing the nomination, an email dated June 2, 2008 purportedly between Party members describing a “scheme” to gain signatures under Etzel’s name then substitute Barr (apparently this is from the public portion of our website discussion forum where a question was asked on June 3 if Barr and Root needed to be on the nomination papers and a response indicated they did not and the process in PA was to submit papers then substitute), a spreadsheet detailing signatures gathered pre-convention and post-convention, and Barr’s candidate affidavit.
Rochelle Etzel was nominated by the LPPA board in February to be the Presidential candidate on the nomination papers to be circulated. The process was well under way at the time of the LP convention. It had taken until the convention to gather approximately 15,000 signatures, about 14 weeks into the allotted time of 22 weeks to qualify for the ballot. There is no mechanism in the PA election code to allow the substitution of nominees until the nomination papers are filed. I checked with DOS Legal counsel Larry Boyle on that. Insufficient signatures were gathered to submit the nomination papers at that point in order to effect a substitution. Given the results from 2006 and 2004, it was unclear if 50,000 signatures would be sufficient to gain ballot access.
We needed to proceed to gather enough signatures to effect the substitution pursuant to the PA election code. This includes time to gather sufficient signatures to account for errors or omissions on the papers and compile the submittal. That process was not completed until the latter part of July, immediately before our submittal. Rochelle Etzel could not withdraw until after the submittal.
The remedy suggested in the petition is to discard all nomination papers prepared prior to the convention and begin the process again with less that half of the time allowed for other political bodies or independent candidates to gather signatures. This places an undue burden on the LPPA based on the arbitrary date selected for the national LP convention. Had the date of the convention been earlier or later, the nomination papers could have been entirely completed either with the LPPA nominee or the LP nominee. To roughly bisect the timeframe as it did created the worst possible condition for the LPPA to complete the signature gathering process.
Clearly our intent was to effect a substitution in accordance with Pennsylvania election law, not mislead any signers. It should not be that the date of a national convention creates a different set of conditions for different political bodies in the Commonwealth, and maybe we should seek relief from the undue burden these laws have created.
Actually, under the laws of the Commonwealth, the “Political Body” was the LPPA, as we are the state Party. State law does not apply nationally, so it should not apply to anyone residing outside of PA. The Political Body was represented by the LPPA Board, that nominated Rochelle Etzel as the Presidential candidate, who remained until she withdrew. What happens elsewhere or what our obligations may be to other entities has no bearing on our actions under Commonwealth law.
The LPPA Board of Directors also designated a Committee to Fill Vacancies that was clearly indicated on every nomination paper circulated. This belies the claim that there was any intent to mislead signers. Certainly under the PA election code, the LNC could not have stepped in to replace Etzel on the nomination papers, claiming to be the political body.
The intent of the signers of the nomination papers was that they wanted the Libertarian Party candidates to appear on the ballot. To strike a candidate because of an unforeseen, unduly burdensome condition created by the election code would be a disruption of the Pennsylvania electoral process, a subversion of the Pennsylvania election laws, and contrary to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
This petition is a thinly veiled attempt to remove a candidate because of a perceived threat to another candidate purported to be a Presidential nominee and on the November ballot. It seems that is the intent of this filing.
Вот так,неÑоглаÑен Ñ Ð¿Ñ€ÐµÐ´Ñ‹Ð´ÑƒÑ‰Ð¸Ð¼Ð¸ неудачниками
Споки Bye
Да,неÑоглаÑен Ñ Ð¿Ñ€ÐµÐ´Ñ‹Ð´ÑƒÑ‰Ð¸Ð¼Ð¸ неудачниками
Споки Bye