INDEPENDENT CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE SECURES POSITION ON NOVEMBER BALLOT – EGREGIOUS BALLOT ACCESS LAWS IN PENNSYLVANIA MUST BE ABOLISHED

HARRISBURG, PA – John Murphy the independent Congressional Candidate in the 16th district filed close to 5,000 signatures with the Department of the Commonwealth on Friday morning. Pennsylvania's egregious ballot access laws required Murphy to submit 2,300 signatures but, as the press has been reporting under the topic of "Bonus Gate", independent and third-party candidates have to collect at least twice as many signatures as required by law because the Democrat Party will even use state employees, on taxpayer time, to ensure that independent and third-party candidates never make it onto the ballot unchallenged or at all.

"While the Democrat and Republican candidates were able to spend the last four months campaigning and raising funds, our resources were completely absorbed in securing my position on the ballot" explained John Murphy. "It's bad enough that we have the most anti-democratic state in the union, singled out even by the Helsinki Accords Group, but the Democrat Party has taken these already draconian ballot access laws and exacerbated the situation by making use of the minutia embedded in those laws. It's one thing to remove the signature of a person who is clearly not a citizen of Pennsylvania, it is quite another to remove a signature because ‘Lucinda’ signed her name as ‘Cindy’ or somebody printed their name in the column where you're supposed to sign your name. That’s how the Democrats removed the independent Presidential candidate Ralph Nader in 2004 and the Green Party’s Senatorial candidate Carl Romanelli in 2006."

John Murphy further explained that there may be some good news on the horizon for the citizens of Pennsylvania. "There are two ways you can defeat democracy" said John Murphy. "One way is by preventing people from voting, the other is by preventing worthy candidates from ever appearing on the ballot. In Pennsylvania the Democrat Party has chosen the latter method. Fortunately State Senator Mike Folmer has introduced legislation into the Pennsylvania Senate entitled the ‘Voters’ Choice Act’ which would redefine minor party's requirements by lowering the threshold to .05% of the registered voters and then allowing the minor parties to nominate their candidates by convention and, like the candidates of the two older parties, have no signature collection requirements for the General Election.

"Independent candidates like me would simply have to collect the same number of signatures that candidates from the two older parties have to collect for their Primary Election ballot. I hope everyone urges their state senators and representatives to support this important piece of legislation by Senator Folmer. If we can accomplish this in Pennsylvania we will be at last in compliance with the Pennsylvania Constitution which mandates 'free and equal' elections and on our way to fighting for Instant Runoff Voting", concluded John Murphy.

"The Corporate-Free Candidate"