Marc in Metro on Frivolous Petition Challenges.

Let the politics begin
Dozens of ballot petitions challenged across city
by josh cornfield / metro philadelphia

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MAR 14, 2007
CITY HALL - Political candidates and their supporters flooded the courts with challenges to ballot petitions yesterday against candidates running for mayor, City Council and other municipal races.
“This is part of politics,” said political consultant Maurice Floyd. “In this town everybody knows you better pay very close attention [to petitions and financial forms]. Check it, double check it, triple check it and check it again.”
Floyd said that knocking a candidate off the ballot is “a home run.” Even the challenge itself — before a judge rules if signatures are valid or financial forms are in order — can bring political benefit.
The candidate that is challenged is forced to spend time and resources in court, with lawyers sometimes forced to review hundreds of individual signatures, and can lose the support of financial backers.
The ballot petition challenges come a week after a group of Council candidates banded together to call on Philadelphia politicians to keep from petty ballot challenges. At-large Council candidate Marc Stier said yesterday that challenges to fraud and gross errors are OK, but petty challenges against the way a signature looks should be avoided.
He said that mayoral candidate Bob Brady’s petition shouldn’t have been challenged just because he forgot to include his city pension in his financial disclosure form. Still, he hopes that the experience will get Brady to back ending the culture of petty ballot petitions.
“I would hope that being forced to go through this process that so many of us have also gone through would encourage Congressman Brady to take the lead in making the laws a little more sensible,” Stier said.
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