Pennsylvania Supreme Court kicks Green Party candidate off state’s November ballot

The Green Party’s candidate has been disqualified from the upcoming November elections in Pennsylvania after the state’s Supreme Court deemed his paperwork to have been improperly submitted.

Howie Hawkins was disqualified from the ballot on Thursday when the Supreme Court overruled an earlier decision by a lower court.

According to the top court, the Green candidate was booted from the election over improperly delivered paperwork. The minor parties have to collect signatures to nominate their candidate, and while the Green Party delivered signatures by hand by the August 3 deadline, it decided to fax in an affidavit for a placeholder candidate under whose nominal candidacy the party gathered said signatures.

While Hawkins delivered his affidavit to take the place of the placeholder candidate properly, the faxed one got lost and was not discovered until August 25. Still, the court ruled the placeholder candidate’s affidavit should have been delivered in paper form, thus disqualifying Hawkins.

“And the court said, fax is not good enough,” the lawyer for the Green Party, Larry Otter, said. “They need an original.”

With the Green Party case settled, Pennsylvania’s counties can now proceed to print ballots for the upcoming presidential election.The court ruling constitutes something of a win for the Democrats, as liberal-minded voters are more likely to cast their ballots for Joe Biden with the Green Party candidate gone from the polls.

The state may prove crucial for the former vice president, as no Democratic candidate has won the US election without securing it since Harry S. Truman in 1948. Back in 2016, the state was won by Donald Trump, who brought it behind Republicans for the first time since 1988.

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