Democrats get a third-party hopeful knocked off Pennsylvania ballot, as Cornel West tries to get on

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania Democrats have won legal challenges keeping the left-wing Party for Socialism and Liberation off the battleground state’s presidential ballot, at least for now, while a lawyer with deep Republican Party ties is working to help independent candidate Cornel West get on it.

The court cases are among a raft of partisan legal maneuvering around third-party candidates seeking to get on Pennsylvania’s ballot, including a pending challenge by Democrats to the filing in Pennsylvania by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A Commonwealth Court judge agreed with two Democratic Party-aligned challenges on Tuesday, ruling that the paperwork filed by the Party for Socialism and Liberation was fatally flawed and ordering the party’s presidential candidate, Claudia De la Cruz, off Pennsylvania’s Nov. 5 ballot.

Seven of the party’s 19 presidential electors named in the paperwork were registered as Democrats and thus violated a political disaffiliation provision in the law, Judge Bonnie Brigance Leadbetter wrote. Six voted in the Democratic Party’s primary on April 23.

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