Otherwise, Democracy Might Break Out!

From the Phil Inquirer:

The Green Party's efforts to get on the November ballots once again suffered a setback when a federal judge ruled yesterday that the party needs more than 67,000 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia upheld a state election law yesterday that requires Green Party and other minority party candidates to collect a certain number of valid signatures equal to 2 percent of the "vote total of the candidate who obtained the highest number of votes for state-wide office in the previous election."

The 2004 presidential election resulted in the biggest voter turnout in Pennsylvania history. The biggest statewide vote-getter was Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., and 2 percent of his total yielded this year's 67,070 threshold for third-party candidates.

While the Green Party turned in more than 90,000 signatures by the Aug. 1 deadline, state Democrats have contested their validity. Democrats claim they found fake names, unregistered voters and illegible signatures among the petitions of the Green Party's U.S. Senate candidate, Carl J. Romanelli.

A hearing is set for next week in Harrisburg, Pa., to challenge the vailidy of the signatures. Last week, state Green Party gubernatorial candidate Marakay Rogers and running mate Christina Valente withdrew their nominating papers because of the expense of defending their petitions against the Democrats' challenges (Joseph A. Slobodzian, Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 24). -- EB

Illegible SIGNATURES? Yikes! I have collected a lot of signatures for the Libertarian Party, but all I have checked for legibility was the names. The SIGNATURES? Wow.

(Nod to anonyman)