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PA-Lt. Gov: Petition Scorecard

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The field for Lieutenant Governor also shrunk by one as Harrisburg city advisor Brenda Alton failed to file her petitions by 5pm yesterday, and Stack led the field by a wide margin.

Lieutenant Governor candidates are required to file at least 1,000 petition signatures with at least 100 from five different counties.

They are ranked here in quantity of signatures.

1. Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley (R)

Unsurprisingly, the unchallenged incumbent was the grand winner in quantity, with 26,680 signatures on his petitions that were filed earlier this week.

“Pennsylvania is stronger today because of the tough decisions Governor Tom Corbett made to put us back on a path towards prosperity and I look forward to serving with him a second term,” Cawley said.

2. State Senator Mike Stack (D)

Stack is the real winner in the petition game; he totalled 9,600 petitions from across the state.

“We decided we wanted to file early to reflect the hard work we’re doing and to demonstrate that mike stack brings a significant organization to the ticket,” Stack’s campaign manager, Marty Marks told PoliticsPA. “We believe that we can help the ticket most in November and our early filing here helps demonstrate that.”

3. Harrisburg City Councilman Brad Koplinski (D)

Koplinski filed 6,016 petition signatures, with at least one from every county. He’s the only candidate to do this, with the exception of the Corbett-Cawley ticket.

“I have been fighting against the Corbett-Cawley team for the last 13 months because we need a new direction for Pennsylvania,” Koplinski said. “Thank you to everyone that circulated and signed my petition!  It is a great testament to our corps of volunteers in every corner of the state.”

4. Former Congressman Mark Critz (D)

Critz pulled together 4,273 signatures from 25 different counties across the state.

This strong showing follows his second place finish in the Harper Poll where he was just beat by Jay Paterno by 1 point.

5. State Rep. Brandon Neuman (D)

Neuman brought in 3,931 signatures from 30 counties. 8 of those counties are well over the 100 mark and 2 more are just over the 100 threshold.

“Thanks to the support from many of my colleagues in the House of Representatives and grassroots mobilization around the Commonwealth, we submitted nearly 4,000 signatures from 20 counties and I am confident that I will be on the ballot on May 20,” Neuman said.  “I look forward to expanding our ground game and meeting as many voters as possible. I’m the best choice to team up with a Governor candidate to win in November and together, we will hit the ground running in January 2015.”

6. Bradford County Commissioner Mark Smith

Smith filed 2,296 signatures from 18 different counties. Although this number places him closer to the back of the filed, it’s likely safe from any challenge.

7. Former PSU football coach Jay Paterno

Challenge watch: According to the petitions hosted on the State Department’s website, Paterno filed just 1,117 signatures from 17 counties, many of which were close to the 100 threshold.

We spotted him twice filing supplementals yesterday, but the final tally isn’t yet available. There were some rumblings around the filing room that at least one Lt. Gov. candidate has hired a petitions lawyer, and Paterno would be the likely target.

8. City of Harrisburg adviser Brenda Alton

The most unfortunate story coming out of petitions yesterday is that of Brenda Alton. She arrived around 4:00pm to file her petitions – the only problem was that the staff member responsible for bringing the petition signatures to the department of state did not arrive until after 5:00pm. Regardless of how many signatures she had collected, they were not accepted and she will not appear on the ballot.

6 Responses

  1. Remember when Critz challenged Altmire and spent tons of money and Altmire won the case! My guess would be that’s who will challenge any signatures because he knows he will have the hardest time winning over voters!
    Neuman for being a relatively new name seems to have got an impressive number!

  2. PA News-
    Brittany clearly qualified the ranking with “winner in the petition game” GAME!!

    While I maintain that anything over twice is overkill and a waste of campaign resources, it is the first test of a campaign’s field operations, and the various county totals can provide insight into where each campaign is strong/weak.

    I do think it’s interesting that Brad managed to get signatures from all 67 counties. That is a unique distinction. I think it’s a reflection of Brad’s efforts to visit every county and make connections with the locals.

    It would be political malpractice to fail to knock Paterno off the ballot.

    According to Keystone Politics, he’s got a defective petitions circulated by Diana Paterno of Springfield Township, Montgomery County.

    “On each of Ms. Paterno’s 4 Philadelphia petitions (29 signatures), she appears to have incorrectly executed the Affidavit of Circulator before the Notary. On each petition, Ms. Paterno states that the county of petition signers is Montgomery, not Philadelphia.

    If those 29 signatures were removed, Paterno would have only 90 signatures in Philadelphia, taking him 10 below the amount required for his Philadelphia signatures to count toward the 5 counties above 100 requirement.”

    Sounds like a slam-dunk to me.

  3. You are ranking candidates based on the number of petitions. This suggests the number of petition signatures matter. Historically, what is the correlation between the number of petition signatures gathered and the percent of the Democratic primary vote received?

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