PA candidate for Supreme Court Justice accused of bias

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PA candidate for Supreme Court Justice accused of bias

A Pennsylvania candidate for Superior Court Judge, Victor Stabile, is facing strong criticism from Pennsylvania third party activists.

As former Republican Chair for Cumberland County, Stabile had previously praised GOP actions to remove Green, Libertarian and Tea Party candidates from the ballot. He said: “I am very pleased to report to you that challenges to the Green, Tea Party, and Libertarian candidates for state-wide office have been successful and these third party candidates will not be appearing on the November ballot.”

Pennsylvania Libertarian Party Chair Lou Jasikoff asserted last week that Stabile was biased, and unfit to hold judicial office. According to Jasikoff, “being a party partisan should not be the qualification for a Superior Court Judge.”

Jasikoff also took issue with Stabile’s assertion that “voters do not get disenfranchised when fraud is uncovered.” According to Jasikoff, over 2,000 signatures were challenged because the person collecting them used “Betsy” instead of “Elisabeth” when signing her name. Some of the other challenges included the use of two digit years in dates instead of four digits, or voters who signed where they should print their names and vice-versa.

According to Jasikoff, lawyers for the Republican Party gave Libertarian candidates a choice: drop out now or face fines personally of over $100,000 if the challenges prove successful.

Election law expert Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, said that Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania are the only three states “which permit candidates to challenge their opponents’ petitions on the basis of technical defects,” and that Pennsylvania was the only state in which candidates could face personal bankruptcy.

Christina Tobin, President of The Free and Equal Elections Foundation, said that “Victor Stabile appears more concerned with partisan politics, than he is with upholding his oath to the Pennsylvania Constitution.”

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania states that “Elections shall be free and equal; and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.”

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Free & Equal is a nonpartisan, non-profit public-policy advocacy organization dedicated to election reform and improving ballot access laws in the United States.