HARRISBURG – James Collins, President Judge of Commonwealth Courts, said that parties are making progress in validating signatures that were challenged as part of three Green Party members’ attempts to get on November’s ballot.
The judge offered the comments during a status conference yesterday in Harrisburg. Three men challenged the validity of signatures submitted by Marakay Rogers, candidate for governor; Christina Valente, candidate for lieutenant governor; and Carl J. Romanelli, candidate for U.S. Senate.
However only Romanelli was in attendance. According to Romanelli, Rogers and Valente are no longer defending the challenge, which was made by William R. Caroselli, Fred R. Levin, Daniel J. Anders and Peter D. Winebrake. Representing those men are attorneys Shawn N. Gallagher and Cliff Levine of Thorp Reed & Armstrong.
“This is an attempt to clearly sabotage my campaign,” said Romanelli after the conference.
“As a retired officer of the court, the partisan and non-significant language in the objection is troubling,” added Romanelli.
“I believe we will prevail,” said Romanelli.
Titus North, Green Party Candidate for U.S Congress 14th District of Pennsylvania was also in attendance.
Because North’s name was on the same signature sheets as Romanelli and the other Green Party candidates, his run to get on the ballot is being challenged as well.
North pointed out that the validity of signatures in his district, Allegheny County, are fairly high. North needs a little over 4,000 signatures to get on the ballot.
“We’re banging away,” said Romanelli’s attorney Lawrence M. Otter. Otter is the Romanelli campaign’s sole legal counsel in the issue.
Otter said that around 2,500 signatures are being looked at daily. Over 67,000 signatures out of over 90,000 were challenged.
The main block of signatures being examined now are those of Allegheny County and Philadelphia County. According to Judge Collins, those two counties historically have the greatest number of invalid signatures.
While no action was taken and no outcome in the immediate future, stipulative issues were discussed. Issues such as how to properly use the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors system, printed versus written signatures on on the ballots and voter registration cards, nicknames, and other items will be left up to the attorneys for both sides to hammer out.
Everything was not exactly friendly in the room where the signatures were being counted at times, according to Judge Collins.
“I was extremely upset by heresay accounts concerning…various workers involved in the process,” said Judge Collins.
Judge Collins said he wants work on validating signatures done by the Thursday before Labor Day. Then, any judicial and legal issues will be taken care of.
One item of interest is an argument to be heard on Wednesday concerning exactly which election the signature numbers should be calculated from, whether it was Bob Casey’s 204 state-wide treasurer election or Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Sandra Newman’s retention on last year’s ballot. If it is decided that Justice Newman’s election is where the number of signatures the state-office candidates need, the total number of signatures needed would be reduced.
According to a prior GantDaily story on this subject, Pennsylvania law states that the number of qualified signers on the nomination papers must be equal to 2 percent of the largest entire vote cast for any elected candidate in Pennsylvania at the last preceding election involving statewide candidates.