ALLENTOWN – The federal judge who rejected a challenge by smaller political parties shouldn’t second-guess himself during an appeal, lawyers for Gov. Tom Wolf are arguing.
The lawsuit by the Libertarian, Constitution and Green parties argues the state requirements for collecting in-person signatures to qualify for a general election ballot are impossible to meet during the coronavirus pandemic.
Judge Edward Smith refused to grant a restraining order against those requirements – a decision the parties want to appeal immediately.
And during the appeal, they want a stay, citing “new events” like an executive order from Wolf that does not impose stay-at-home restrictions and a decision from Virginia federal court.
“Plaintiffs have again failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims, that they will be irreparably harmed absent an injunction or that an injunction favors the public interest,” Wolf’s lawyers wrote.
“Nor are these ‘new events’ sufficient to disturb the status quo as the Third Circuit decides the merits of Plaintiffs’ appeal on an expedited basis.”
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.