Ken Krawchuk
Long-time Pennsylvania Libertarian candidate and activist Ken Krawchuk will be running for governor on Tuesday as a write-in. Henry Haller is the candidate for lieutenant governor.
Pennsylvania has some of the worst ballot access laws in the country. Only parties with at least 15 percent of the registered voters qualify as a major parties. If that threshold was applied in other states, the Democratic Party in Idaho and Utah would not be recognized, and the Republican Party would not be recognized in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia.
Further, major parties have minimal petitioning requirements compared to parties that don’t have 15 percent of the registered voters. Major party candidates for governor, U.S. Senate, and president only need 2,000 signatures, whereas the non–major party candidates this year needed 16,639 signatures.
“Just because the Libertarian ticket has been unjustly barred from the ballot does not mean the game is over for 2014,” Krawchuk said back in August when it was apparent he and the candidate for lieutenant governor would not be on the general election ballot.
“We’re going into extra innings as a write-in campaign,” Krawchuk said. “I do want to thank all our spirited volunteers for the immense effort they’ve already put out, but now is not the time to stop. We need to keep up the pressure on a system that continues to increase the cost of government at more than three times the rate of inflation, a system that fails to educate far too many of our children, a system that releases murderers and rapists from our overcrowded prisons to make room for pot-smoking Grateful Dead fans. Obviously, it’s long past time for a change, and we Libertarians represent that change. It’s our duty to the citizens of the commonwealth to continue our campaign, and you can bet we will.”
