PHILADELPHIA – Libertarians haven’t found a sympathetic ear at the Third Circuit, which has ruled against them in their challenge to Pennsylvania’s signature-gathering rules.
On July 28, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said a federal judge was right not to impose a restraining order against the part of state election law that requires a certain amount of signatures for a party to get on the ballot.
The Libertarian, Constitution and Green parties all claim they can’t meet those requirements because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“(W)e agree that the law survives intermediate scrutiny because it serves the Commonwealth’s legitimate and sufficiently important interests in ‘avoiding ballot clustering, ensuring viable candidates, and the orderly and efficient administration of elections,’” the Third Circuit wrote, citing Judge Edward Smith’s decision.
The parties sued Gov. Tom Wolf and election officials earlier this year but have almost run out of time, though the Third Circuit argues they have had sufficient time to meet the signature requirements.
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.
Judge Smith didn’t buy the argument, ruling there was no severe burden that kept the parties from gathering enough signatures.
“A burden can be characterized as severe if it works to exclude legitimate candidates from the ballot. Here, none of the stay at home orders precluded the plaintiffs from collecting signatures directly, which is the means for accessing the ballot. Furthermore, Pennsylvania began lifting its stay at home restrictions in May, with all counties in Pennsylvania having their stay at home orders lifted as of June 5, 2020,” Smith wrote July 20.
“Additionally, plaintiffs had 33 days to collect signatures prior to the first stay at home order going into effect on March 23, 2020, and the plaintiffs have a full 60 days from June 5, 2020 to Aug. 3, 2020, which is the deadline for signature collection, to meet the requirements imposed by the Feb. 1, 2018 order.”