Incumbent City Commissioner Loses Court Fight To Be On May Primary Ballot, But Will Appeal
By Steve Tawa
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Now officially removed from the May 19th Democratic Primary ballot, incumbent City Commissioner Stephanie Singer, whose office runs elections, will appeal to Commonwealth Court.
After hearing post-trial motions to reconsider, a Philadelphia Judge knocked her off the ballot for having insufficient nomination petition signatures.
The lengthy legal challenge began two and a half weeks ago, and included some long days and nights going line by line over about 1,500 petition signatures for Stephanie Singer, 1,100 of which were challenged.
Singer finished the court case with 996 signatures, four short of the minimum 1,000 valid signatures required by law.
Challengers' attorney Richard Hoy says while the presiding Judge, Joel Johnson, gave Singer some slack, and ruled dozens of signatures as valid, Singer will find out they'll get tossed on appeal.
"Namely the signatures of people registered, not at their address. The judge granted them and let them in. I counted 164. There's a good possibility the numbers will go lower."
Singer says there are at least 18 people whose signatures were wrongly rejected that should be restored on appeal, or else those folks will be disenfranchised.
"Voters have the right to be heard, and that includes signatures on petitions."
Singer's lawyer also believes the challengers' handwriting expert's report should have been thrown out.
