On September 12, at 6:30 p.m., U.S. District Court Judge Yvette Kane denied injunctive relief to the Constitution Party of Pennsylvania. She said that it is possible the legislature had delegated authority to the State Elections Department to write a regulation setting a filing deadline. She also said that even if the Elections Department did not have authority from the legislature to do that, that setting aside the August 1 deadline would restore the old unconstitutional May deadline, and that would injure the other petitioning groups this year. The case is Baldwin v Cortes, 1:08cv-1626.
This lawsuit will have been beneficial, despite this disappointing outcome. Since the case only denied injunctive relief, not declaratory relief, it is still alive. It is very likely that regardless of what happens next in the lawsuit, the legislature will now understand how important it is to pass a bill setting a constitutional deadline. As noted in earlier posts on this matter, the old deadline was invalidated by two federal courts in 1984, and the legislature has ignored those 1984 decisions and has never replaced the old May deadline.
Great now in Pa my choices are McCain, Obama,Barr and Nader. No Constitutionalists.
I am not a Baldwin boy or Keyes guy, but it is still sad that the Constitutionalists can not seem to ‘catch a break’ in P2008! Not good for Democracy, not good. Tuff year dudes………
Hey Joe, remember, with the Democans and the Republicrats keeping the various ‘loyal opposition’factions at bay, we in 21st Century America have one more choice than in Hilter’s and Stalin’s day……..
Joe Murphy- Don’t count on Barr, either. The GOP wantas him off, too.
That would be “wants” not “wantas”
Not on in PA or CA?
There goes 30,000 votes.
Baldwin can still get write-in status, no?
What I don’t understand is, why don’t judges refuse to permit elections until the legislature passes a Constitutional law, or else, why the judge can’t write the wording and give the legislature a certain time frame to come up with their own. I am not a lawyer, but I don’t understand why legislatures are permitted to ignore court rulings. Presidents can’t tell a court to go screw themselves, why can state legislatures get away with it?
Pennsylvania is one of the few states that has write-in space on ballots, but which doesn’t have a law that says write-in candidates file a declaration of write-in candidacy. Back in 1898 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said the state constitution protects write-in votes. Therefore, every write-in vote in Pennsylvania is valid, and under the law must be counted. However, about 16 counties (out of 67) don’t count write-ins. It is likely that a lawsuit will be filed in the next few weeks to force all write-ins to be counted.
Exactely,
Pennsylvanians, you can still write-in Chuck’s name and it will be counted as a vote.
Write-in Baldwin/Castle!
A lawsuit should have been filed in Pennsylvania back in 2006. In fact the Pennsylvania ballot access coalition sent the Department of State a letter demanding that write ins be counted and said a lawsuit would be filed if they weren’t. Had they done so the ballot access reform bill might have been passed by now.
CQ, write ins WON’T be counted in Pennsylvania. They should be but absent a successful lawsuit they won’t. I’m an election official (Inspector of Elections) in PA, I know this stuff.
Richard, you are absolutely right about PA counties not allowing write-ins. I live in a county in PA (York) which completely and arbitrarily rejected write-in votes for Nader (which is what I cast) in 2004, but didn’t even announce it until the day after the election! Even the elections workers at my precinct were unaware, as I told them I was going to write in Nader’s name and was told to go ahead and do it.