The Republicans in the PA State House who tried and failed to implement voter ID laws for the 2012 election have failed again; this time on their goal to prevent the Libertarian party candidates from appearing on PA ballots. After a seven week, line-by-line review of the signatures submitted by the Libertarian party, Commonwealth Court Senior Judge James Gardner Colins has determined that Libertarians had collected at least 20,730 valid signatures, which about a hundred more than needed.

Mike Barley, Executive Director of the PA Republican Party, made a glass of lemonade by saying “They submitted 50,000 signatures and we knocked well over 50 percent of them off.”

This ruling means, along with presidential candidate Gary Johnson, there will be four other Libertarians on the PA ballot; Rayburn Smith running for Senate, Marakay Rogers running for Attorney General and Betsy Summers, Auditor General. The Green Party candidates will be on the ticket as well. But since, unlike Libertarians, Green candidates tend to siphon Democratic votes, the state Republican party saw no need to challenge their inclusion in the democratic experiment.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 11th, 2012 at 2:07 pm.