The Pennsylvania Democratic Party filed objections yesterday to signatures collected jointly by three Green Party candidates seeking statewide offices and asked a state court to remove them from the Nov. 7 election ballot.69,000? That's a lot of fakery!
Party officials alleged in a Commonwealth Court filing that U.S. Senate candidate Carl Romanelli, gubernatorial hopeful Marakay Rogers and lieutenant governor candidate Christina Valente failed to gather the 67,070 signatures they needed to qualify for the election.
The candidates have said they jointly collected at least 90,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot, but the Democratic Party alleged in court papers that more than 69,000 were invalid because they included fake names, names of unregistered voters and illegible signatures.
"The nomination paper and the pattern of forged and fictitious signatures ... exhibits a pervasive pattern of impropriety," the court filing said.
The P-G is reporting some of the names supposedly used on the petitions that Santorum bought:
Democrats claim that thousands of Green Party petition signatures are phony, including such names as Mickey Mouse, Mona Lisa, Woody Allen, Robert Redford, George Bush, Gerald Ford and Lee H. Oswald.And Politics1.com is reporting more of the names:
As many as 70,000 of the 93,000 signatures turned in Monday by Carl Romanelli, Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, are invalid, Democrats claimed yesterday.
To be on the Nov. 7 ballot, Mr. Romanelli must have at least 67,070 valid signatures of Pennsylvania registered voters.
After a review of candidacy petitions filed on behalf of Green Party US Senate candidate Carl Romanelli and gubernatorial candidate Marakay Rogers, Dems plan to file a lawsuit bouncing them off the ballot. State Democratic Chair T.J. Rooney said a detailed review of the petitions -- a signature drive admittedly financed almost entirely by GOP supporters of embattled US Senator Rick Santorum -- showed 69,622 of the 94,544 signatures are likely invalid. "Phony names, fake signatures and a tremendous amount of illegal and deceptive practices were uncovered during our thorough and aggressive analysis," said Rooney. The Dems mocked the submitted petitions for being so sloppy as to contain signatures purporting to be for Jesus Christ, John Kerry, Lee H. Oswald, Terri Schiavo and Mickey Mouse. Romanelli countered the move is a heavy-handed, undemocratic effort to block him from running. Various sources involved in Keystone State politics told Politics1 they are confident the Democratic legal challenge will succeed in disqualifying the statewide Green nominees.Ouch - looks like Lil Ricky wasted someone else's money - again.
Over at The Trib, Dickiecougarmellonscaife's little paper that could, we find a little about petitions. While the whole point of the story seems to be how little the Romanelli campaign will affect the Casey/Santorum race, there's not much about reason why the petitions have been challenged. Take a look:
U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's chances of winning re-election could improve if a third-party candidate remains on the November ballot and siphons votes from Democrat Bob Casey, an analyst said Wednesday.Many of the signatures. No examples of the names, no numbers. Just "many of the signatures" are claimed to be invalid. Good reporting.
"This is the kind of year when a third-party candidate could do better than you expect," said Bob Maranto, a political science professor at Villanova University.
Democrats on Tuesday asked Commonwealth Court to remove from the ballot the Green Party's Senate nominee, Carl Romanelli, and two other Green Party candidates seeking statewide office.
Romanelli got help from Republicans in his petition drive. Democrats claim many of the signatures on Romanelli's nominating petitions are invalid.
If this turns out to be true and all those signatures are invalid, how stupid can these people be? "Terri Schiavo" signed a petition for the Greens? "Jesus Christ"?? Did they think no one would check?
Rick Santorum - he can't get anything right!
Give me a break already. If you were checking names as you circulated up to six or seven petitions at a time you would have errors too.
ReplyDeleteLets face it. The system is unfair. Now that the Green Party has attempted to play by the rules and do their very best to get a truly Progressive and Liberal candidate on the ballot they have to face all of this mudslinging and have the Democratic (I use that word as a title not by definition) Party.
As for Santorum contributors funding the petition drive, who cares? It is their money and last time I checked here in America people are free to spend it anyway they want. At least Carl has not taken money from Halibutron like both Santorum and Casey.
No candiate, no matter how "hot" the race, should be forced to collect 33 times the amount of names just because they are not a "major" party member.
I guess that on election day I will have to go back to my origional plan if Carl is off the ballot. I'll just write in Terri Sheivo, Jesus Christ or Mickey Mouse! I don't plan on voting for eith of the two Satans.
It is a sad fact: there is little hope for any politician who isn't running as either a Rep or a Dem.
ReplyDeleteIf he's taking $$$ from Santorum, he is taking $$$ from Haliburton -- it doesn't suddenly become clean because it was touched by Green hands.
ReplyDeleteWhen your candidates are clowns, it doesn't really matter where the money comes from. Romanelli doesn't simplty want out of Iraq (I'm with him there), he wants to replace our troops with the Muslim soldiers of our Allies. And where would they come from, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen. face it we don't have any reliable allies in the region and that includes Maliki. But I guess when your entire candidacy is a fantasy, your policy initiatives can be as well.
ReplyDelete