Opinion ID: 1984918
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 19

Heading: revised election calendar recommendations

Text: Reference is made to Memorandum of Respondents, filed on behalf of the Secretary of the Commonwealth and the Election Commissioner, to recommend suggested revisions in the election calendar resulting from this litigation (and also from the separate case involving appeals to the Supreme Court from the Reapportionment Commission). Noted and recommended for adoption by the Supreme Court is the Secretary's recommendation that the calendar for electing delegates and alternate delegates to the national conventions be revised along with the congressional election calendar because of their related nature. All of the proposals of the Secretary are hereby recommended for consideration by the Supreme Court, with the exception of the proposed dates for the Commonwealth Court's latest hearing and deadline for filing that court's decisions on objections to nominating petitions. The Election Code limitation for judicial review of such objections, 25 P.S. § 2937, has been held to be directory, not mandatory. In re Moore, 447 Pa. 526, 291 A.2d 531 (1972). The development of objections to nominating petitions, usually involving scrutiny of numerous signatures, is time consuming. Nevertheless, Commonwealth Court, following a Friday, March 13 deadline for filing nominating petitions, would propose to convene hearings on objections promptly on Monday, March 16, before the proposed March 19 deadline for filing such objections. With Thursday, March 19, as the last day for filing objections, as the Secretary recommends, Commonwealth Court should also have the week of March 23-27 to conclude all hearings. And the latest day for the filing of the court's decisions, pursuant to those hearings, could be the following Monday, March 30. Hence, the period from April 1 through April 28 would remain for the important administrative aspects of the election process to proceed. Of course, if nominating petition objection cases could possibly be concluded sooner than the recommended dates, the Commonwealth Court, being experienced in such litigation, would certainly strive to do so.