Opinion ID: 2397006
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Signature Review Process

Text: When the Commonwealth Court convened on August 27, 2004 for the oral argument, no stipulations had been implemented. Volunteers for the Candidates had reviewed only 1,371 signatures of the 23,149 signatures that Objectors challenged in Philadelphia, or, roughly six percent (6%). Transcript at 10. Counsel for the Candidates testified that he can't control the volunteers and that we didn't have enough volunteers. Id. Further, he testified that it took about five minutes per signature, using each available computer. Id. Using ten terminals, for eight hours a day, counsel stated that a thousand signatures a day could be reviewed, if we have enough people to man ten terminals. We did yesterday, I don't know today .... the maximum we could get would be about 5,000 more signatures, 6,000 more.... I'm pushing them. I have told them they have to get me the volunteers. I don't have that stock of volunteers. Id. at 21-22. On the day of the hearing, volunteers were using the two available terminals in Pittsburgh. Addressing the comment of the President Judge, counsel agreed that if that fifty-three percent not registered number ran through its course, there wouldn't be enough signatures. Id. at 13. Further, Candidates' counsel stated to the court that his signature review was not proceeding fast enough. Id. at 17. The signature review was proceeding at an average rate of 150 signatures per day. The court noted that [a]t this rate, less than half of the challenged signatures in Philadelphia would have been reviewed, for the limited purpose of stipulations only, prior to Election Day. Commonwealth Court Memorandum and Order dated September 9, 2004, at 3 (emphasis added). Further, the Commonwealth Court found that the preliminary review by Candidates' counsel showed that of the 1,371 signatures checked, fifty-three percent (53%) were not registered at all, and another twenty-one percent (21%) had address or timing discrepancies, which were not amendable pursuant to the holdings of this Court in In re Nomination Petition of Silcox, 543 Pa. 647, 674 A.2d 224 (1996) and In re Nomination Petition of Flaherty, 564 Pa. 671, 770 A.2d 327 (2001). Transcript at 12. Further, twenty to thirty signatures were clearly fraudulent. Transcript at 14. Candidates' counsel estimated that he would need to review about 20,000 more signatures in Philadelphia, and that it was humanly impossible to examine the allegedly defective 32,000 signatures. Id. at 21, 31. Based on these preliminary findings, the Commonwealth Court projected that the rate of invalidity would place the number of signatures below the required number of 25,697. Commonwealth Court Memorandum and Order dated September 9, 2004, at 4. Counsel argued that the Commonwealth Court had not given us time to prepare[,] but stated that [y]ou have bent over backwards for us, but that's not enough. Id. at 38-39.