Democrats get a third-party hopeful knocked off Pennsylvania ballot, as Cornel West tries to get on

Pennsylvania Democrats have won legal challenges keeping the left-wing Party for Socialism and Liberation off the battleground state’s presidential ballot, at least for now, while a lawyer with deep Republican Party ties is working to help independent candidate Cornel West get on it.

The court cases are among a raft of partisan legal maneuvering around third-party candidates seeking to get on Pennsylvania’s ballot, including a pending challenge by Democrats to the filing in Pennsylvania by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A Commonwealth Court judge agreed with two Democratic Party-aligned challenges on Tuesday, ruling that the paperwork filed by the Party for Socialism and Liberation was fatally flawed and ordering the party’s presidential candidate, Claudia De la Cruz, off Pennsylvania’s Nov. 5 ballot.

Seven of the party’s 19 presidential electors named in the paperwork were registered as Democrats and thus violated a political disaffiliation provision in the law, Judge Bonnie Brigance Leadbetter wrote. Six voted in the Democratic Party’s primary on April 23.

“They literally voted in the Democratic primary and then turned around to try to be electors for a third-party candidate,” said Adam Bonin, a Democratic Party-aligned lawyer who filed one of the challenges. “You can’t do that.”

The Party for Socialism and Liberation didn’t immediately say whether it planned to appeal.

Meanwhile, a lawyer with longstanding ties to Republican candidates and causes went to court to argue that the Secretary of State’s office under Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro was wrong to reject West’s paperwork.

“I see no good reason for Mr. West to be kept off the ballot or Pennsylvanians otherwise prevented from voting for him,” the lawyer, Matt Haverstick, said in an interview. Haverstick declined to say who hired him or why.

The Secretary of State’s office is contesting the legal challenge, saying the paperwork lacked the required affidavits for 14 of the 19 presidential electors before the Aug. 1 filing deadline. A broader effort by conservative activists and Republican-aligned operatives is underway across the country to push the candidacy of the left-wing academic.