Mind you, the first round of legal action was only to determine if he had enough legal signatures to get on the ballot (he turned in 90K and over a third of them were false signatures putting Romanelli 9k below the requirement). The second round was with a higher court to try and use a statewide election in 2005 as the standard for the 2% required to get on the ballot instead of 2004's election which was a much higher count - that was just rejected this morning!
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06277/727247-177.stmGreen Party hopeful is out; win for CaseyWednesday, October 04, 2006
By James O'Toole, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The prospect of a three-way U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania appeared all but over yesterday as the state Supreme Court rebuffed Green Party Senate candidate Carl Romanelli's bid to get on the November ballot.
The ruling, in a one-sentence order, was good news for the Bob Casey campaign, which had feared that Mr. Romanelli's presence on the ballot would siphon votes from the Democrat. For the same reason, it was a blow to Sen. Rick Santorum and to the Republican donors who had funded the petition drive that sought to establish the Green hopeful's access to the November ballot.
State election law dictates that independent candidates for statewide office submit nominating petitions with a total number of signatures from registered voters equivalent to 2 percent of the votes cast for the top vote-getter in the most recent statewide election. The justices upheld a Commonwealth Court ruling that set a 67,000-vote threshold based on 2 percent of the votes cast for Mr. Casey in his 2004 race for state treasurer.
Mr. Romanelli's attorney, Lawrence Otter, argued that state elections officials should have used a 2005 judicial retention election for Justice Sandra Newman, a move that would have resulted in a signature requirement of approximately 15,000. The Green candidate had originally submitted nominating petitions, which he said, contained early 100,000 signatures<<<<snip>>>>>
Mr. Santorum had sharply criticized the Commonwealth Court order throwing Mr. Romanelli off the ballot, describing it as the work of "partisan judges."
Denouncing that characterization, Mr. Levine said, "I think it's important to note that he blamed it on partisan judges without knowing the facts or the law.
"Now we have a decision by the Supreme Court which has a majority of Republican justices applying the law, not partisan politics. It was a disservice to the appellate courts to suggest otherwise."<<<<snip>>>>>
"It's 14:59 and Romanelli's 15 minutes of fame are up," said Larry Smar, the Democrat's press secretary. "The question is whether Rick Santorum will ask Romanelli for his money back." Now for those of you who are about the flame this thread claiming "We need another voice on the ballot", please let me remind you that this "another voice" was fully funded by Rick Santorum voters - which doesn't make him "another voice" but simply a tool to help Santorum catch up to Casey.
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