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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Rob Hopkins Undefeated in Nomination Challenges

He has no money to hire PIs to follow people. He even lacks the funds to hire a lawyer. But so far, Rob Hopkins is undefeated in his fight against defective nomination petitions in the Democratic state committee race.

Lehigh County contributes seven seats to the Democratic state committee. This year, seventeen candidates filed nomination petitions. Nine were full of glaring deficiencies, like Republican signatures or the same person signing every name.
Hopkins would probably agree that a close case should be resolved in favor of keeping someone on the ballot, allowing the voters to decide. But should an unregistered voter or a Republican have a say in a Democratic state committee person?

Hopkins, himself a member of the state committee, is stepping down at the end of this year. He needs a break from politics, but still dug into his own pocket to challenge the nine petitions. Three of these candidates - Joseph E. McAndrew, Carlos Salas and Nancy I. Rodriguez - have voluntarily withdrawn. Another two hopefuls - Shelly Lee and Mariah Simpson - were ordered removed from the ballot yesterday.

That's five down, with four to go, starting tomorrow.
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 30, 2010 at 12:36 AM

    You do realize all of this is being done to benefit King Pawlowski.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMarch 30, 2010 at 5:23 AM

    Anon 12;36 Could King ED have more candidates running to draw votes so other candidates do not get more votes than him, especially since we have been reading the financial mess King Ed has Allentown, and he would lose the election for state committee, with eight or more candidates.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMarch 30, 2010 at 7:27 AM

    523 AM... Ed Pawlowski will be the highest vote getter of 50 candidates running. This guy wins elections. He can royally screw up the city's finances, everybody knows it and he STILL destroys.

    The only way this guy isn't mayor of allentown is if he goes on to do something bigger and better.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Craig FriebolinMarch 31, 2010 at 2:09 AM

    Actually .. I think the problem is that your average Joe has no idea when, where, or how to vote. The local 'news' doesn't cover that aspect often and rarely before the deadline to register.

    Also it's difficult to actually find unbiased and useful information on the candidates.

    Even the candidates themselves put out useless flyers because they're expensive to print. Thus they don't list 'issues' on them since the issues are always changing.

    If someone started a good, easy to navigate and understand, website that compared how the candidates stood on various issues along with information on when and where to register/vote ... and then had local media and social networking sites promote said website ... there would be a MUCH MUCH larger voter turnout.

    PS - for all I know this site already exists, but I haven't heard of or found it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bernie O'HareMarch 31, 2010 at 8:58 AM

    The ET has provided that info the last two election cycles.

    ReplyDelete

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