This week supporters of all the major presidential candidates will take to the streets in search of the 4,000 signatures required to garner a spot on the ballot in Pennsylvania's woefully belated primary election on April 22nd. According to state law, each campaign will need to gather the necessary signatures by a deadline of February 5.

I understand the logic: We don't want people throwing their names on the ballot on a whim or as a joke—we want them to prove they're serious about wanting the job. And 4,000 signatures seem like a relatively attainable requirement for well-funded campaigns that boast staffs of hundreds.

But what about the serious potential candidates who don't have the money or resources to gather that many signatures in two weeks? And are the requirements even the same if you identify as something other than Democrat or Republican?

Turns out ballot access in Pennsylvania is actually a pretty big issue—at least among the smaller parties. And here in the Keystone State, third-party groups like the Libertarians, the Socialists, the Constitution Party and the Green Party all have it pretty rough when it comes to what they really care about: the general election.

"Last year Pennsylvania was ranked as having the worst ballot access laws in the country based on the population," Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition (PBAC) co-founder and Green Party member Rob Small tells me. "It's very hard to get on the ballot at all as a third party candidate—for statewide and national elections."

The law is as follows (and get ready, it's pretty convoluted): In order to be placed on the ballot, third-party candidates must obtain 2% of the number of votes won by the highest vote-getter in any race in the previous election cycle. So, for example, Pa. State Senator Bob Casey (D) was the highest vote-getter in the 2006 elections with 2,392,984 votes. That means a third-party candidate this year needs to gather more than 47,000 signatures between February and August (the timeframe is different than for the two major parties) in order to be placed on the ballot in the general election. Since signatures are often challenged by members of the major parties, candidates would really need to acquire about twice that amount, just to be safe.  

"It makes it extremely unfair," says John A. Murphy, who is running for a state House seat as a member of the Green Party and is also a co-founder of the PBAC."We're having our rights taken away by the two old parties, both of which are owned by the same 1,500 corporations that fund their campaigns."

"By the time you spend all your time and effort and money getting on the ballot, you have very little left to actually run a campaign," adds Small, who says this is the reason most Pennsylvania elections include no third-party candidates at all. "If they don't change the laws, Pennsylvania will be the only state in the nation that will have only Democrats and Republicans on the national and state-wide tickets."

Word is that Pennsylvania State Rep. Kerry Benninghoff (R) is currently putting together a bill that would give third-party candidates the option of paying the numerical signature requirement in dollars to the state, up to a maximum of (a mere) $4,000. If a candidate couldn't afford to pay the fee, they could still gather the signatures instead.

The bill, which does not yet have a name or number, has Democrat and Republican supporters. But Small says, overall, politicians in Pa. are happy with the status quo—for good reason.

"There's a lot of one-party rule in Pennsylvania because of this—because the Democrats aren't pushed by the Greens and the Republicans aren't  pushed by the Constitution or Libertarian party—so they can do what they want," he explains.

It's unlikely Benninghoff's bill will pass in time for the general election in November.

With the daily influx of presidential horse-race coverage from the media, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that our democracy was built on the idea that an American of any background, belief system or political party should have the opportunity to engage in the political process and have his or her voice heard. The two-party system we use to contextualize the issues facing our country today represents only a fraction of the views of Americans. And by silencing the voices of the extreme, the unconventional, or even just the independent thinker, we miss out on a wealth of ideas that could help our country flourish.

Unfortunately, right now it looks like Pennsylvanians who want more choices in their leadership will have to wait at least another few years.

"Some of us are saying if the law doesn't change we'd rather not even try to run a presidential candidate because it takes too much out of us," says Small. "We're being told this is a democracy—but only if you want to vote for a major party."

-cjh