GREENS PREPARE TO DEFEND SIGNATURES

Green candidates for statewide office are preparing to defend signatures against a court challenge filed by Democrats late yesterday. Greens submitted approximately 100,000 signatures last Tuesday to get Carl Romanelli, Marakay Rogers and Christina Valente on the November ballot for U.S. Senate, Governor and Lt. Governor, respectively. The number of signatures submitted was historic, breaking all prior records for nomination papers.

Rogers said, “Nothing could be more clear than that the will of the citizens of Pennsylvania is for Green candidates to appear on the ballot. Yet Democrats will use technicalities and this year’s freakishly high signature requirement to dodge a discussion of issues that are important to voters.”

In the race for U.S. Senate, in contrast to both Bob Casey and Rick Santorum, Romanelli is against the war in Iraq and he is pro-choice on abortion. “At a time when Iraq is unraveling and President Bush has packed the Supreme Court with conservatives, it would be a disgrace if Santorum and Casey were the only candidates on the ballot. They are out of step with Pennsylvania on the quintessential global issue and personal issue of the day,” said Romanelli.

Pennsylvania has one of the most repressive ballot access laws in the nation. Apart from Greens, no other minor party or independent campaign was able to garner enough signatures to qualify for the statewide ballot.

Bob Small, a Green and founder of the Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition, said, “Greens have always supported more choice on the ballot. We are proud to have worked in a non-partisan manner with Libertarians, the Constitution Party and others to craft the Voters Choice Act.” The Pennsylvania Assembly failed to act on this legislation in time for this election cycle. Small added, “In contrast, Democrats are fighting for less choice. They are foolishly casting themselves as the Undemocratic Party by subverting the will of tens of thousands of valid signators.”

In a conference call held last night, the Green Party of Pennsylvania Steering Committee estimated that Green candidates still had about 95,000 remaining valid signatures after a Bureau of Election review last Tuesday. The filing that day was so voluminous that six election officials worked for twelve hours to certify that the minimum required number, 67,070, had been received. Tens of thousands of additional signatures await review.

Green Party of Pennsylvania Chair, Paul Teese, said “Our Green candidates are mustering a team of lawyers, training volunteer assistants, acquiring necessary databases and preparing to sample the signatures identified in the anticipated Democrat complaint. We’ll see them in court.”