A federal judge chastised Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt on Thursday for keeping left-wing presidential candidate Cornel West off the presidential ballot using tactics that “appear[ed] to run afoul of the U.S. Constitution,” but stopped short of installing West back on the ballot due to the short amount of time left before the election.
Pennsylvania’s Democrat-controlled supreme court denied West a spot on the ballot in mid-September, siding with Secretary of State Al Schmidt “in rejecting West’s candidacy paperwork.”
West challenged the decision in federal court in the Western District of Pennsylvania where, last week, U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan denied West ballot access again, not over paperwork, but because mail-in voting had already started in the state and Election Day is too close.
In his decision, however, Ranjan acknowledged West has “[u]nquestionably suffered irreparable harm, because the loss of First Amendment rights constitutes irreparable harm.”
“This Court has serious concerns with the Secretary’s [Al Schmidt’s] application of the election code’s restrictions to Dr. West,” Ranjan’s order said. “The laws, as applied to him and based on the record before the court, appear to be designed to restrict ballot access to him (and other nonmajor political candidates) for reasons that are not entirely weighty or tailored, and thus appear to run afoul of the U.S. Constitution.”
The court also seemed sympathetic to West’s complaint of discriminatory laws, with the court noting minor-party candidates must meet ballot access requirements that Republicans and Democrats don’t have. For example, minor parties
