ALLENTOWN – Pennsylvania’s governor and other state officials believe three political parties’ lawsuit to waive the usual requirements of signature collection to get onto the general election ballot is groundless and should be dismissed.
Those political parties - plus their candidates Steve Scheetz, Kevin Gaughen, Alan Smith, Timothy Runkle, Bob Goodrich and Justin Magill - filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on May 14, versus Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, Secretary Kathy Boockvar and Deputy Secretary for Elections and Commissions Jonathan M. Marks.
Pennsylvania designates “minor” political parties as those which receive less than 15 percent of registered voters statewide and “political bodies” as organizations that don’t overcome a given threshold of votes cast in the most recent general election.
Candidates of such parties are required to be witnessed collecting a certain number of voter signatures in person, in order to appear in the general election. For this year’s election, the deadline for which to collect the signatures is Aug. 3.
“The public health emergency caused by COVID-19 and the various ‘stay at home’ orders issued by Governor Wolf make it unlawful and practically impossible to gather signatures for nomination papers in Pennsylvania,” according to the lawsuit.
“The Governor’s new remote rules for notaries and witnesses demonstrate that requiring in-person contact to satisfy Pennsylvania’s petitioning requirements is not presently possible. Further, it will remain difficult if not practically impossible to collect signatures after emergency measures are lifted, because personal contact with large numbers of people during the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to present an unacceptable risk to the public health.”
According to the plaintiffs, the usual requirements of signature collection should be waived due to the coronavirus pandemic and the level of danger that would be involved with obtaining them.
In the alternative, the plaintiffs argue that other methods of obtaining signatures like online petitioning, should be used in lieu of the tried-and-true, in-person method utilized prior to the pandemic.
“Pennsylvania law, together with the coronavirus outbreak and the Governor’s orders, cause injury-in-fact to plaintiffs and plaintiffs’ 1st and 14th Amendment rights,” the suit states.
On June 5, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, based on five arguments.
“First, plaintiffs do not allege a potentially-viable claim for injunctive relief against Gov. Tom Wolf. The stay-at-home orders have already been lifted. There is no claim for relief against the governor and no basis to keep the governor as a defendant,” the dismissal motion reads, in part.
“Second, there is no requisite case or controversy. Plaintiffs’ allegations of harm are entirely conjectural. They posit that it is ‘impossible’ to obtain the required signatures prior to the Aug. 3, 2020 deadline, but the stay-at-home orders have been lifted and nearly two months remain in the signature gathering period. Plaintiffs do not and cannot plausibly allege facts demonstrating that the signature requirement is out of their reach. They plainly lack standing.”
As a third assertion, the defendants say the signature requirement that plaintiffs seek to avoid appears in a federal court order that resolved earlier litigation on another election issue, which is not state action for an alleged 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 violation.
“Fourth, there is no constitutional violation. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has already determined that the governor’s executive order compelling the temporary closure of physical operations at non-life sustaining businesses was a proper exercise of executive authority, was reasonably tailored to meet the exigencies of COVID-19 and did not infringe on rights guaranteed by the 1st or 14th Amendments. There is no basis for this Court to conclude otherwise.”
“Fifth, plaintiffs’ challenges to the stay-at-home orders are moot. The restrictions were lifted on a county-by-county basis beginning on May 8, 2020 and were fully lifted as of June 5, 2020. Injunctive relief is no longer possible with respect to those orders.”
For counts of violating the 1st Amendment and the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment, the plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction and declaratory judgment prohibiting enforcement of Pennsylvania’s signature requirements for Minor Party and Political Body candidates for office for Pennsylvania’s Nov. 3, 2020 general election, to accept the plaintiff candidates’ nomination papers and placing their names on the ballot; costs; attorney’s fees and additional relief the Court deems just.
The plaintiffs are represented by Drew Gray Miller of Anderson & Labovitz in Pittsburgh, Mark R. Brown in Columbus, Ohio and Oliver B. Hall of the Center for Competitive Democracy in Washington, D.C.
The defendants are represented by Daniel T. Brier, Donna A. Walsh and Richard L. Armezzani of Myers Brier & Kelly, in Scranton.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 5:20-cv-02299
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com