A Pennsylvania judge is mulling whether to bounce Green Party presidential nominee Howie Hawkins from the Nov. 3 ballot, due to a legal challenge that has the state Democratic Party’s fingerprints all over it.
Commonwealth Court Judge J. Andrew Crompton may rule as soon as Wednesday after a three-hour hearing Monday. The legal question: Did the Green Party meet the state deadline to file candidate affidavits for its presidential ticket?
The party initially put up Elizabeth Faye Scroggin for president and Neal Taylor Gale for vice president on Aug. 3, but replaced them a week later with Hawkins for president and Angela Walker for vice president.
The challenge focuses on the affidavits for Scroggin and Gale.
Pittsburgh attorney Clifford Levine, who has done work for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, filed the challenge last month on behalf of Paul Stefano, chairman of the Lawrence County Democratic Party, and Tony Thomas, who ran as a Democrat for Wilkes-Barre City Council last year.
The state Democratic Party didn’t respond to requests for comment when asked what, if any, role it played in sponsoring the challenge. Clout asked Levin if the state party played a role: “They’re aware of it,” he said.
The challenge at first tried to also have the Green Party’s candidates for state row offices — Richard Weiss for Attorney General, Olivia Faison for Auditor General, and Timothy Runkle for Treasurer — removed from the ballot. That portion of the challenge was dropped last Thursday.
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The Green Party has denounced the Democratic Party, accusing it of “voter suppression that rivaled the more well-know efforts of Trump and the Republicans to undermine Democracy.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer
