HARRISBURG, PA. — A federal judge has denied Cornel West’s request to be included on the presidential ballot in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, expressing sympathy for his claim but saying it is too close to Election Day to make changes.
U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan said in an order issued late Thursday that he has “serious concerns” about how Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt is applying restrictions in the state’s election code in the West.
“The laws, as they apply to him and based on the record before the court, appear to be designed to limit his (and other non-mainstream political candidates’) access to the ballot for reasons that are not entirely weighty or appropriate, and therefore appear to be in violation of the US Constitution,” he wrote. said Ranjan.
West, a liberal academic now a professor of philosophy and Christian practice at New York’s Union Theological Seminary, is likely to draw far more votes from Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris than from Republican former President Donald Trump. The attorneys in West’s case have deep Republican ties.
“Had this case been filed earlier, the result, at least on the present record, may have been different,” Ranjan wrote in denying the request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.
An appeal will be filed immediately, West’s attorney, Matt Haverstick, said Friday.
“It’s a situation where I think, given constitutional rights, any ballot access is better than no ballot access,” Haverstick said. “We would be pleased if Dr. West could be included on some ballots, or even if a notice was posted at the polls at the polls.”
Matt Heckel, press secretary for the Pennsylvania State Department, said in an email that Ranjan got the right result but that he “respectfully” disagrees with Schmidt about the judge’s enforcement of his agency’s election code. stated Heckel state courts he previously supported the State Department.
“One of the dangers of these last-minute cases is that courts do not have adequate time to review the law when making decisions,” Heckel wrote.
Ranjan cited federal precedent that courts should not suspend elections without compelling reasons to do so. He said it was too late to reprint the ballots and retest the voting machines without increasing the risk of error.
Putting West on the ballot at this point, the judge ruled, would “undoubtedly cause voter confusion as well as post-election litigation over the counting of newly printed mail-in ballots.”
West, his Justice for All Party nominee and three constituents sued Schmidt and the State Department in federal court in Pittsburgh on September 25, arguing that the department’s interpretation of the election law violates their constitutional rights to freedom of association and equal protection. Specifically, West’s presidential electors—people willing to vote for West in the Electoral College—challenged the requirement that candidates submit affidavits.
In court testimony Monday, West said he aimed for “equal protection of voices.”
“Ultimately, when you lose the integrity of a process, when you ultimately create distrust in public life, it reinforces spiritual disintegration, it reinforces moral decadence,” West said.
Ranjan was appointed to the court by Trump in 2019. 14 of the US Senate’s no votes, including Harris, then a senator from California, were cast by Democrats.
