Apparently the concept of the independent voters or candidates hasn’t quite made it to Pennsylvania. The parties do have lock on things political here and it is a bit difficult for those of us who choose not to be either Republican or Democrat.

A short article by Anthony R. Wood in the Philadelphia Inquirer of August 7 begins this way –

When Jim Foster showed up with his 125-page petition to run for Congress against Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), state elections officials rejected his signatures on the ground that another member of his party already had a candidate.

Since Foster doesn’t belong to a party, he was flabbergasted. He was filing as an “independent.”

There was already an “Independent” who had qualified the day before and the state would not allow 2 people from the same or similarly named parties to run in the same race lest the voters be confused. Apparently the Department of State of Pennsylvania cannot fathom that “independent” and “Independent” are not 2 parties with similar names but rather individuals who are not part of a party.

There is more to the story than I will discuss here so if you have an interest in Pennsylvania politics you might find it worth reading.

But for this story, the main point is that it went to court. And a follow-up story, gave us a bit more on this.

Most people would think it fairly obvious that “independent” and “Independent” are not 2 parties with similar names but the law seems to lack a certain degree of common sense at times. Unfortunately, this is one of those times.

The court did find that Mr. Foster could run but could not be an independent. He would have to identify with a made up party such as the “Philadelphia Party”. But if the first filer for the “Independent” slot was disqualified, Mr. Foster could be the “Independent” candidate. A mixed and rather absurd result in my opinion but then I can think about it logically rather than in terms of Pennsylvania law.