Lentz is nothing more than David Landau lite. These types of guys routinely get trounced by the voters and will do so again. So this whole thing ends and NOT ONE Republican signature is diqualified. Sheesh!

Yes – even the blatant forgeries that have been discussed in the press and on this site seem to be perfectly acceptable to P O’Neill.
I hope we see more sunlight on this issue in the coming weeks.

my understanding is that there will be another court hearing on the rest of the complain, although that will not affect the overall outcome. It was extremely unlikely that Meehan would be thrown off the ballot anyway, but the case and the upcoming hearing will continue to paint Meehan as a Delco GOp insider with all the baggage that comes with. This looks like a political move rather than a legal one.

No, there will not be another hearing. Lentz recognized his BS was not worth the paper it was written on and withdrew his complaint rather than risk sanctions and continued embarassment. That’s the issue with ballot challenges, you need to show the person doesn’t have 1,000 valid signatures. He couldn’t do it, so he made stuff up. His complaint was bogus. What a waste of taxpayer money.

As for the forgeries, Pat Meehan asked authorities to investigation those and said the person responsible should be held accountable. Hopefully the AG will prosecute those who forged signatures.

Lentz loses in November and the GOP wins the seat. Thank you Nancy and Barack!

Mr. Meehan has shown his true colors during this whole incident. He’s a party insider who looks the other way when GOP machine politicians do his dirty work for him.

I thought he was better than this, but I guess I was wrong.

I doubt any of these candidates really care about the taxpayer. The question is whether the brouhaha and the expense was worth it for the Lentz campaign.
They did succeed in tying Meehan to the Delco GOP and ending whatever efforts Meehan was making to portray himself as an independent voice in Delco. But that was a hard sell anyway. It’s an interesting election – a Dem running in a tough election environment against a Repub running essentially as the incumbent. The reverse of what’s going on around the nation.

huw-

Nice attempt at spinning this, but if anyone is running as the incumbent in this race, its clearly Lentz. He’s a sitting state legislator marred by the Bonusgate scandal who voted for Rendell’s budget and tax increases. Doesn’t bode well for him at all.

Meehan is a puppet and child of the machine and benefits by the election fraud perpretrated by the like of the political machine leaders. He has never run a campaign for office against a serious opponent. there is years of footage of him with gwb and specter…he also has photoops with perzel…this should be great to watch…and with the admissins of fraud already in the press by the Delco GOP operatives….

Maybe if Lentz hadn’t wasted resources going after Conner and Touey, he would have had more time and money to focus on his legitimate case against Meehan.

This is what happens when you take your eyes off the ball and distract yourself going after candidates who weren’t a threat. You let the real threat slip your grasp.

While I feel the moves and what was uncovered against Meehan were absolutely brilliant, I also feel that it was absolutely foolhardy to waste precious campaign resources going after the Democratic primary opponents.

The Lentz campaign showed an enormous amount of political muscle standing up to and catching Meehan and the Delco GOP red-handed in deliberate fraud.

The point of the Judge’s ruling was that they cannot automatically rule out all the petitions notarized by a Notary connected with a bad Circulator in an aggregate fashion.

However, the Judge DOES need to bring every Notary and Circulator into court, under oath, and ask them about their sworn signatures and the “inconsistencies”. If the Notaries violated their oaths, they should be dismissed as Notaries, and pay whatever fine/penalty there is. The circulators appear to have been engaged in willful voter fraud and deception. Smells criminal to me. Furthermore, Pat Meehan and his campaign staff should have to swear under oath to whatever prior knowledge or involvement they had.

It will be fun to watch Meehan “plead the Fifth”.

As for the Judge’s “aggregate” ruling, there is a way to get all the petitions in an aggregate fashion, if the Notaries and Circulators are forced to testify under oath. Ironically, on Feb 16th I outlined this EXACT aggregate scenario to Vince Rongione at the Delco Dem’s nominating convention. If Vince calls me, I’d be happy to remind him of what line of questioning (under oath) would permit an aggregate dismissal of the Petitions. (This assumes that they haven’t already closed that door with their approach and by prematurely conceding paragraphs 47-49 in a way that closes this loophole in the Judge’s reasoning.)

A correct ruling by a Democrat judge . I am surprised at Rep. Lentz . His arguments were ridiculous .

Anyone interested in looking at a sample of the evidence of wholesale fraud should go to the slideshow at the Lentz campaign website and see for themselves: http://votelentz.com/images/stories/meehanpetitions.pdf The assertion that this whole scandal is the work of one “overzealous” volunteer is just hogwash.

Dave,

I think you are referring to the “Rizzo Doctrine” that has been upheld in court. I am told it has to do with the “reckless disregard for the process” which would allow for the wholesale dismissal of the petition.

Throwing out notories because of the impropriety of a circulator was always a long shot argument. The notory’s job is just to attest and verify that the circulator or person doing the swearing is actually the person swearing that “blah, blah, blah is the case” not to verify the truthfulness of what is sworn. That is the argument that the judge threw out as invalid.

Most experts also agree that the Fed’s do not have jurisdiction. I would persue a more winnable course of action… just saying.

md-
I wasn’t thinking of that.

The only reason to throw out the Notaries would be if they didn’t observe the Circulators sign, backdated, notarized while stuff wasn’t all filled in, etc. However, under oath, the Notaries might be willing to “give up” the Circulators, rather than risk perjury (or rather further perjury if they falsified anything).
But, removing in aggregate comes down to asking a special series of questions to paint them into a corner, the only escape from which is to lose the ballots.

Of course, this will only work if Lentz’s campaign is correct about the frauds they’ve identified. If the Notaries and/or Circulators lie on even one question under oath, they would be cooked and lose the aggregate petitions.

The only “muscle” the Lentz campaign showed was leading you group of circle-jerkers who were running around shouting Machine” and “Criminal”! When the opportunity finally came for Lentz to look at those he accused and drag everyone into court, he spit the bit. He challenged Meehan to a fight and when the time came, he escpaed out the back door to go play with his dolls. David, huw and Colleen, you must be proud.

P O’Neill-
It still amazes me that folks are standing up for the Meehan team.
Did any of you actually look at the evidence?

http://votelentz.com/images/stories/meehanpetitions.pdf

I senderely hope my covernment can be run more carefully and ethically that this petition submission.

P O’Neill-
We seems to have different reading on what happened. Meehan submitted about 3,600 signatures. The Lentz campaign withdrew when it appeared that the judge was going to allow the minimum number of 1,000 of those signatures.

That does not negate the apparently willful and deliberate criminal behavior used for 2,000 of the signatures. That’s the “machine” you seem so eager to defend.

The Lentz campaign should still pursue convictions for these people associated with the rampant violations. Meehan seems rather unconcerned with the criminal actions done on his behalf (hardly surprising considering his record of selective prosecution).

Come on, did you really think Pat Meehan is any different than any politician? Please drop out of the race now.

Pat”The Rat” Meehan -your face is peeling and so is your (sic) reputation. Meehan represents EVERYTHING that is wrong with the political system. He has company though….Tom “Naked Gun” Corbett, Scott “Flow-bee” Cocklin, Rick “The Dick” Santorum, etc. Let’s stand tall and get rid of them all-they make this country and our state weak…

The only people on the stand are going to be lentz and his folks when they have to testify in the defamation cases that are going to be brought.
They called some good hardworking folks forgerers and they will have to answer for it. I’m not sure they thought that one through.

—————Being in the party for over 35 years I am not one bit surprised at the ruling. The GOP has always been the GOP and they are as corrected as all get out, I saw many of the petition and they were forged even a simple minded judge could see that. Forget these clowns now the people will get what they deserve in Delco. I know my pct in Upper Darby will vote for Lentz and so it goes. McNicol is a old corrupt man and always has been ! Can anyone prove different but he knows that the “times are a changing”