If you’re unhappy with your election candidates this year and you want another option, you can still get yourself or someone else on the November election ballot to run.
That’s if you meet certain requirements and work hard to make it happen.
Pennsylvania has an Aug. 1 deadline for independent or third-party candidates to get on the ballot for state attorney general, auditor general, treasurer and state representative and senator.
Or even president of the United States or U.S. senator.
For example, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt, whose department oversees elections, said presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed nomination papers to get on the ballot in late June as the We the People Party candidate.
“And we accepted it,” Schmidt said. “Like it met the threshold for a number of signatures and all the other paperwork.”
So did the paperwork of Claudia De La Cruz, the Socialism and Liberation Party presidential candidate. They'll share the ballot with a couple of better-known candidates most people know: Democratic President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
Kennedy and De La Cruz had to gather lots of signatures on nomination papers, a lot more than Democratic or Republican candidates. For president, third-party candidates need 5,000 signatures to get on the Nov. 5 election ballot compared to the 2,000 Democrats or Republicans needed to get on the primary election ballot.
“That didn't used to be how it was for a long time,” Schmidt said. “But courts determined that it was unfair in some way."
The third-party signature requirement used to fluctuate depending on outcomes of previous elections before courts overturned that. So the state created set numbers for statewide offices.
There’s a reason for third-party candidates for any seat still have to gather more signatures: Any registered voter can sign a third-party candidate’s nomination papers. Only Democratic voters can sign Democratic candidate nominating petitions and only Republicans can sign for Republican candidates.
One other thing: if you were registered as either a Democrat, Republican or Libertarian within 30 days before the April 23 primary, you can’t run as an independent or third-party candidate.
You can find the signature requirements for president of the United States, U.S. senator and state attorney general, auditor general and treasurer here and for U.S. House and state representative and senator here and other rules on the state Department of State website.
