Greens and Libertarians win in Pennsylvania

In an opinion released on Friday, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel ruled that minor parties were restricted in their ability to organize and speak out by the Pennsylvania elections code.

An article on page 6 of today’s Morning Call that discussed the decision noted that third party candidates were required to gather as many as 10 times the number of signatures as Democrats and Republicans.  If the petitions are challenged, the third party candidates must pay the legal fees.

Richard Winger, editor of the Ballot Access News (and a personal friend of mine) was quoted in the article.  He said that Pennsylvania was just one of four states that had no independents or third-party candidates on the ballot in the last statewide election.  

Perhaps the legislature will now take the next steps with early voting, election day registration, easier absentee applications, and a voting system with a paper trail.  Maybe the legislators will even end gerrymandering.

I’m pretty sure Rep. Heffley, a great believer in fairness, would support all of those measures.