Scuffle erupts over Green Party's Pa. ballot petitions

[Pirate Smile]

Scuffle erupts over Green Party's Pa. ballot petitions

MARC LEVY
Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A scuffle broke out Friday between campaign volunteers counting signatures to determine whether the Green Party's candidate for U.S. Senate can appear on the November ballot.
About six people filled out police reports after the minor fight in a state Capitol office building was broken up.

Democrats have challenged the validity of some of the signatures on the Green Party's petition, fearing that its candidate, Carl Romanelli, could siphon votes away from Democrat Bob Casey as he tries to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Santorum.
The fight broke out early on the fifth day of counting, although witnesses disputed who started it and who broke it up.

-snip-
The Green Party is being aided by volunteers who signed in from Santorum's campaign, and the signature counters have been arguing all week, witnesses said. The fight on Friday was the first physical altercation, they said.

-snip-
Last week, Democrats asked a court to remove Romanelli and two other Green Party candidates from the fall ballot, alleging that more than 69,000 of the signatures they collected included fake names, names of unregistered voters and illegible signatures. The two other candidates later asked to have their names removed from the nominating papers, citing the expense of fighting the Democrats' legal challenge.
Romanelli has acknowledged that most of the $100,000 that his campaign spent gathering signatures probably came from GOP donors, including some who also gave money to Santorum.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/politics/15306851.htm

[Demeter]

1. Be Nice If It Worked

what are the odds on that?

[acmavm]

2. Perfect example of what a shit heap party the Greens are.

They must love misery. They are more than ready to wallow in it just to spite democrats.

That's a mighty peculiar type of mental illness they got going.

[The Wolf]

3. It's going to work...

The first scent of a judicial decision from the 3rd Circuit in this matter, Romanelli is gonna get off this ballot along with the Green candidate for Governor and Lt. Governor. The signatures don't add up, the corruption is rampant within the signature process. Even with ballot access given to us in the state of PA, this is a special case that requires these candidates to be yanked immediately off the ballot. I'm a proud Green who doesn't want to wallow in misery brought upon by our own naivity. I've been barking on DU ever since this damn story broke that he should be removed from the ballot. If something wreaks of bullshit, don't support it. Where is the dishonor in gracefully bowing out of a race to defeat one of the most disgusting human beings to ever walk God's Green Earth in Rick Santorum?? It's an issue the Party was never destined to win, and I don't know why the hell we think we can!

[Ferret Annica]

4. Your comment is foolish

I was the whistle blower that brought the fraud being committed by the petition signature gatherers this last election in Oregon to get Nader on the ballot. I was working at the Skidmore Fountain Building for Saturday Market who owns it where this effort - paid mostly by Republican money - was based. My effort was successful, and I was happy to have been able to provide the information that shot Nader down in Oregon.

I was mentioned in the articles in the Oregonian concerning it, and spoke at the press conference concerning this at the SEIU Union headquarters. Although I had voted in the past for Nader, I felt that election too critical to divide the voting plurality enough to either deny Oregon's electoral votes to Kerry, or to make it so money and time was wasted propping up Kerry's chances here.

I also do not support getting this candidate in Pennsylvania on the ballot in this critical point in our history when we simply must remove Bush and his little crime syndicate from power.

I am also registered as a Pacific Green and you damn well could of made your point without insulting my party or people in my party. Wake up. We are not the enemy, your intolerance of our right to belong to a third party and your very personal degree of maliciousness is however.

Michael Joseph McCarthy of Eugene, Oregon

[IndyOp]

5. Thank you for being a whistleblower -

The Republicans are bent on using/abusing/destroying the Green Party - just as they are working on destroying the Democratic Party with the DLC.

:grr:

I am a member of the Democratic Party until we can get the center back to the center and then I am moving left!

[Ferret Annica]

6. Thank you for your post

I appreciate your kind words, and I intend on voting Democrat this next presidential election for the same reason I did last time; we have a serious problem with Neo Con and criminal infestation in government currently. The time to take Democrats to task for things we Greens do not like about your party can wait until the house that is the United States is no longer on fire and endangered by the flames that is corporate fascism.

[acmavm]

9. And to use the pronoun you are so fond of "I" am not impressed.

The Greens have become a caricature of what a political party should be. You can blow your horn as damn much as you want but I notice it's not the Birchers or the Communists or any other fringe political party.

If you are what you say you are, if you think the way you say you think, then you are obviously an exception to the rule for a Green Party member.

Hey, you think I was hostile. Stick around a while. There's others here who'll make you think I posted you a love letter.

[Ferret Annica]

10. To speak the truth where you accomplished something

is a nasty to you? Too bad. As for your innuendo concerning flaming, I was an interlocutor on the Free Republic for three and a half years back when JimRob let some token liberals play on Cafe Paranoia and was very me opinion-wise.

You or others were more then welcome to amuse me with your flames, but politically I have a very thick skin. Do your worse, I have been openly about who I am for the 10 and a half years I've posted on open forums and I doubt of you could throw anything at me I haven't heard before.

I work as a political activist on forest issues in Eugene, Oregon, and I don't think anything from the world of virtual rhetoric is going to keep me awake the way being in a tree for weeks on end in a very vulnerable position can.

And I am indeed who and what I say I am. You are quite free to check out my credentials all you want. The Register Guard newsroom in Eugene, Oregon is a good place to start. The name in my last post should do it. But if you need to prompt, just say the guy who was nearly killed being pulled from a tree at the Nike Store construction site in Eugene in July 1998, and you will be connected there with someone who knows me.

Or you can contact the Oregonian and get the first articles on the issue and I am right there. I am not stupid and do not lie about something like that when I have posted under my real name all this time in so many forums.

You are welcome, nice to meetcha too.

[acmavm]

11. Seriously, do you really think I'd go to all that bother just to check up

on you?

Now I see why you use the work 'I' so much.

[Ferret Annica]

12. My thread in Liberty Post on the Nader story:

http://libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=64460&Disp=50#C50

Thread title: Nader doesn't make ballot in Oregon (I did it! Ferret's whistleblowing paid off.)

[Penndems]

7. This story was in PoliticsPA and the Harrisburg Patriot-News, too:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=175&topic_id=10989&mesg_id=10989

[Supersedeas]

8. $100K is a drop in the bucket to interfere w/the democratic process