Feb 15, 2018 3 min read

For too long in Pennsylvania, candidates outside the duopoly of the two main political parties have been given a not-so-subtle message: Go away.

While there have not been bouncers at the doors of elections offices shooing away aspiring officeholders from the Green, Libertarian, Socialist Workers, or any other minor party, there could just as easily have been given the ludicrous requirements third-party candidates have had to fulfill in order to get on the commonwealth’s general election ballot. How ludicrous? Where Republican and Democratic party candidates have only needed 2,000 valid signatures in order to get on a primary election ballot in a statewide election, independent candidates or those hailing from minor parties have needed to collect many thousands more – sometimes up to 60,000 or beyond – in order to get a crack at the general election ballot.

Defenders of the system have argued that candidates from smaller parties have, more often than not, not been through a primary election battle, and that having to gather thousands of petition signatures is a kind of primary equivalent.

But the reality is that the two main parties have a vested interest in keeping third-party candidates off the ballot – for the most part. They are widely perceived as being nothing more than spoilers who could siphon votes away from the two major-party candidates. The most notorious case is the 2000 presidential election in Florida, where Green Party standard-bearer Ralph Nader received 97,421 votes. If just 538 of those votes had swung to Democratic candidate Al Gore, he would have won Florida and the White House.

Of course, by the same token, if a campaign by a Republican or Democrat believes a third-party candidate could work to the detriment of their opponent, then they occasionally put a quiet thumb on the scales to help them out.

But whether or not third-party candidates are spoilers, nuisances or cranks, the larger issue is one of democracy – allowing candidates of all stripes to go before voters, and letting their ideas be aired. While most voters bypass them, third-party candidates should be able to state their cases without having to overcome onerous and absurd obstacles.

For that reason, Pennsylvanians of all political persuasions should applaud the settlement of a federal lawsuit that vastly lowers the number of signatures that third-party or independent candidates need to get on the general election ballot. Under the agreement, they now need only 5,000 signatures, and will not have to pay for costly legal challenges to those signatures. As a result, Pennsylvania third-party candidates will no longer be in the predicament 2006 Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli found himself, where he ended up being scratched off the ballot because so many of the 100,000 signatures he submitted were challenged. To rub salt in, he was subsequently slapped with an $80,000 legal bill.

Dale Kerns, a Libertarian candidate in the race for the U.S. Senate seat currently being held by Democrat Bob Casey, told The Philadelphia Inquirer, “If I’m not spending months on end trying to fight to get on the ballot, well then we can spend all our time campaigning and talking about the ideas with voters and debating with each other, so that the election is actually what it’s supposed to be.”

Besides, who’s to say that today’s third party will always be a flyspeck on the national scene? In 1848, Whig candidate Zachary Taylor won the White House. Just eight years later, the party had disintegrated, replaced by the American Party, and this other party made up of folks who called themselves Republicans.