Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Independent and third party candidates will sue to have their votes counted

Major party politicians in Pennsylvania didn't just abuse the voters by unconstitutionally raising their own pay in the middle of the night — they created and continue to support laws that virtually eliminate political competition and deprive you of real choices. In 2006, third-party and independent candidates for state-wide office were each required to raise over 67,000 signatures to get on the ballot. By comparison, Republican and Democratic candidates are always automatically on the November ballot, and individual major party candidates need to raise just 2,000 signatures to gain entrance to their party primary elections.

None of the state-wide candidates attempting to challenge the Dem-Rep duopoly made it onto the ballot. Only one candidate submitted enough signatures, and he was eliminated by technicalities and fined heavily, clearly ignoring the will of thousands of signers, as the Democratic lawyer openly admitted during signature review.

As a result, all state-wide challenger candidates have been forced to run write-in campaigns. These candidates and their parties are prepared to sue to make sure that every write-in vote is counted, as is legally required, but typically ignored.