I subscribe to the Times News and the Morning Call, but neither reported on an important court case involving Pennsylvania election law. Here’s what they missed.
On March 2, 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Steward Daizell, a Bush Sr. appointee, struck down the requirement that each petition signature sheet to gain access to the ballot must be notarized.
The Green and Libertarian Parties challenged this requirement on the basis that it costs a large amount of money for each sheet to be notarized. The plaintiffs said that their petitions for statewide office, which usually need 30,000 signatures, require the expenditure of thousands of dollars in notary fees. Since mandatory filing fees are unconstitutional, this would qualify as a filing free.
Judge Daizell agreed. Unfortunately, the ruling only applies to the Green and Libertarian Parties, and Pennsylvania could still appeal. Nonetheless, I think this is a great precedent and one more blow against the state’s restrictive ballot access laws. I would hope the state would not appeal, and I would also hope that this onerous requirement would be eliminated.
Information for this post came from Ballot Access News, Vol. 31, No. 1, June 1, 2015. If you would like to subscribe, send $16.00 to Ballot Access News, Box 470296, San Francisco, CA 94147.
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