Sestak Attempts to Knock Mel Packer off the Ballot

BREAKING NEWS - Yesterday lawyers representing Joe Sestak filed a suit to kick Mel Packer off the ballot. During the Democratic primaries Sestak played the same trick and knocked Robinson businessman Joe Vodvarka off the ballot. Mel learned about the challenge late last night when he returned home from work at 2am. In an email message sent to his campaign volunteers, Mel wrote:

Joe Sestak is a moral and political coward who is unwilling to let the voters of PA decide for themselves which candidates they support based on their political platforms and positions. By using technicalities to keep 3rd party candidates off the ballot, he demonstrates his continued support for the corrupt and undemocratic system that so many voters have learned to distrust and in which they have no faith.

Please join Mel Packer and Ed Bortz - Green Party candidate for the PA 14th district - for a press conference tomorrow, 11:30am, at Point State Park.

Last night Ed Bortz also alerted Green Party supporters that

Online petitions have been started urging registered Democrats in Pennsylvania to support full ballot access rights for the Green Party. With Green Party candidates in the race, incumbent legislators are more likely to address the issues of war and war funding, banning of Marcellus Shale gas extraction, healthcare for everyone, funds for education instead of Wall Street bailouts, and the ability of citizens not corporations to make policy.

Pennsylvania's repressive ballot access regime for minor party candidates and independents, along with the petition challenge process (usually initiated by competing candidates) is fundamentally unfair to less-financed candidates. (http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/50946)

If you'd like to sign a petition supporting Green Party ballot access rights, go to either online site:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/PA-Dems-of-Conscience
http://www.petitiononline.com/pad2010/petition.html