Opinion
No. 14 EAP 2016
07-19-2016
In re Nomination Petition of John H. MORLEY, Jr. As Candidate for the Democratic Nomination for Senator in the General Assembly from the First Senatorial District, Objection of Gaetano Piccrilli; Michael Weiss and Karen Greenberg. Appeal of John H. Morley, Jr.
Kathleen Marie Kotula, Esq., PA Department of State, for Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislations. City Commissioners of Philadelphia, for City of Commissioners of Philadelphia. John H. Morley Jr., for John H. Morley, Jr. Kevin Michael Greenberg, Esq., Philadelphia, Flaster Greenberg P.C., for Michael Weiss, Gaetano Piccrilli, Karen Greenberg.
Kathleen Marie Kotula, Esq., PA Department of State, for Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislations.
City Commissioners of Philadelphia, for City of Commissioners of Philadelphia.
John H. Morley Jr., for John H. Morley, Jr.
Kevin Michael Greenberg, Esq., Philadelphia, Flaster Greenberg P.C., for Michael Weiss, Gaetano Piccrilli, Karen Greenberg.
SAYLOR, CJ., BAER, TODD, DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, JJ.
OPINION
Justice TODD.
On April 19, 2016, by per curiam order, this Court reversed the order of the Commonwealth Court, which struck the nomination petition of Appellant John H. Morley, Jr. (“Candidate”) as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Senator in the General Assembly from the 1st Senatorial District in South Philadelphia, and directed that Candidate's name be reinstated on the ballot for the April 26, 2016 election. This opinion follows.
By way of background, on February 16, 2016, Candidate filed a nomination petition seeking to appear on the primary ballot for the Democratic nomination for Senator. Under the Election Code, to appear on the primary ballot, a candidate for Senator must present a nomination petition with a minimum of 500 valid signatures. 25 P.S. § 2872.1(13). Candidate's petition contained 37 pages, with 1,047 total signatures, all of which were attested to by the Candidate as the circulator. Objectors Gaetano Piccrilli, Michael Weiss, and Karen Greenberg (collectively, the “Objectors”) filed a Petition to Set Aside the Nomination Petition of Candidate in the Commonwealth Court on February 23, 2016. In their petition, the Objectors alleged that all 37 pages of Candidate's nomination petition were invalid due to defective circulator affidavits and that, even if the circulator affidavits were valid, Candidate did not have a sufficient number of valid signatures to reach the minimum needed for Candidate's name to appear on the ballot.
On March 31, 2016, Judge James Gardner Colins, in an unpublished single-judge decision, struck numerous signatures, upholding challenges to certain circulator affidavits and individual signature lines. In re: Nomination Petition of Morley, 102 M.D. 2016 (Pa.Cmwlth. Mar. 31, 2016). Critical to the instant appeal, the Commonwealth Court, inter alia, rejected 27 signature lines that were signed by individuals who were not registered at the address indicated on the nomination petition, even though they were duly registered as qualified Democratic electors at a different address within the 1st Senatorial District. The court struck these signature lines based upon this Court's decision in In re Nomination Petition of Flaherty, 564 Pa. 671, 770 A.2d 327, 333 (2001), which held that, absent extraordinary circumstances, a signature on a nomination petition must be stricken if the elector declares an address accompanying his or her signature which does not match the address at which the elector is currently registered. The court also cited its split en banc decision in In re Nomination Petition of Vodvarka, 135 A.3d 246 (Pa.Cmwlth.2016) (“Vodvarka I ”), which relied upon Flaherty. The court, however, voiced “vigorous disagreement” with the rationale of these decisions. Ultimately, the court concluded that only 497 of the 1,047 signatures gathered by Candidate were valid—3 shy of the minimum 500 signatures necessary under the Election Code—and, thus, directed the Secretary of the Commonwealth to remove Candidate's name from the ballot. Candidate appealed the Commonwealth Court's order to our Court, specifically challenging the continued viability of Flaherty and its progeny.
In this regard, our Court, in In re: Nomination Petition of Vodvarka, ––– Pa. ––––, 140 A.3d 639, 2016 WL 3448403, 2016 Pa. LEXIS 1323 (2016) (“Vodvarka II ”), recently overruled our 2001 decision in Flaherty, reversed Vodvarka I, and held that “the signature of a registered voter whose name appears in the SURE [ ] registry may not be stricken from a nominating petition solely because the address set forth on the nominating petition is different from the address at which the signer is currently registered to vote.” Id. at 640–41, 2016 WL 3448403, *1. Based upon the analysis as fully set forth therein, Vodvarka II is determinative of this appeal.
SURE is the acronym for the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors. 25 Pa.C.S. § 1222. The SURE system allows for electronic searching for registered voters by name and party, and permits a signature to be retrieved for comparison to confirm registration status without the need to input an address. An individual who signs a nominating petition can be identified in the SURE system by first and last name, and his or her identity and registration status can be confirmed by matching the elector's signature with the signature in the SURE System.
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Specifically, the 27 signatures on Candidate's nominating petition, by individuals who were not registered at the address indicated on the nomination petition but who were nonetheless duly registered as qualified Democratic electors at a different address within the 1st Senatorial District, are valid under Vodvarka II. As the Candidate was otherwise just 3 signatures shy of the 500 signatures required under the Election Code, given the validity of those 27 signatures, Objectors did not meet their burden to strike Candidate's nomination petition.
Accordingly, for this reason, we entered our April 19, 2016 order reversing the order of the Commonwealth Court.
Chief Justice SAYLOR and Justices BAER, DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY and WECHT join the opinion.