Opinion
Argued April 24, 1987
April 29, 1987.
Elections — Nomination petition — Standing to challenge petition — Incumbent candidate — Members of other political parties.
1. An incumbent candidate has no greater standing than any other voter to challenge a nomination petition. [538]
2. Non-members of a political party, including candidates of another party, who are not eligible to participate in any manner in that party's primary election, have no greater interest in that primary than any other member of the general citizenry and have no standing to challenge a nomination petition of a candidate of that party in the primary. [538]
Senior Judge KALISH dissented.
Argued April 24, 1987, before Judge PALLADINO, and Senior Judges KALISH and NARICK, sitting as a panel of three.
Appeal, No. 787 C.D. 1987, from the Order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, in case of In Re: Nomination Petitions of Michael Anthony Pinckney, No. 3798, March Term, 1987.
Petition to set aside nomination petitions of Republican candidate for councilman in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County. Candidate filed preliminary objections. Preliminary objections sustained. Protestant's petition dismissed. WRIGHT, J. Petitioners appealed to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. Held: Affirmed.
Carl E. Singley, for appellant.
William Austin Meehan, Jr., for appellee.
John F. Street and Alicia Allison (Appellants) appeal the decision of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia (trial court) which dismissed Appellants' challenge to the nomination petition of Michael Anthony Pinckney for lack of standing. We affirm the trial court and will consider the standing of each Appellant separately.
Pinckney is a candidate in the Republican party primary election for the office of Councilman for the Fifth Councilmanic District in the City of Philadelphia. Street is the Democrat incumbent in that office, and he alleges that his status as the incumbent candidate gives him standing to challenge Pinckney's nomination petitions. We disagree.
An incumbent candidate has no right or expectancy of continued tenure in his office and has no greater standing than any other voter. Incumbency is irrelevant. In Re Nominating Petition of Kevin Pasquay, 105 Pa. Commw. 532, 525 A.2d 13 (1987).
Street, as a registered Democrat, is ineligible to vote in the Republican primary election, the election for which Pinckney is a candidate. For reasons fully set forth in Pasquay, we hold that because he is ineligible to vote in the Republican primary, a registered Democrat does not have standing to challenge the nomination petition of a candidate in the Republican primary election.
The official election records for the county show Allison to be a registered Democrat. She asserts that on April 19, 1985, she changed her name on her registration, intending to retain her party registration as Republican. Irrespective of her assertions, what appears on the official records is binding. The consistent and orderly administration of election procedures mandates this conclusion.
Accordingly, the order of the trial court is affirmed.
ORDER
AND NOW, April 29, 1987, the order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia in the above-captioned matter is affirmed.
Senior Judge KALISH dissents.