Academic and third-party presidential candidate Cornel West will reportedly appeal a federal judge’s recent ruling that will see him barred from the ballot in Pennsylvania.
U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan on Friday ruled legal action by West came too close to the election for him to be included on the ballot.
Ranjan, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, nonetheless said he has “serious concerns” with how Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt is managing Pennsylvania’s elections, according to The Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
The outlet reported Ranjan wrote Schmidt appears to be applying the law uniquely to West “to restrict ballot access to him (and all other nonmajor political candidates) for reasons that are not entirely weighty or tailored, and thus appear to run afoul of the U.S Constitution.”
Still, Ranjan reportedly wrote that the closeness to Election Day means, “There is no time to re-print thousands of ballots and re-test the election systems across all 67 counties, without increasing the risk of error and confusion.”
He wrote, “If this case had been brought earlier, the result, at least on the present record, may have been different.”
An attorney representing West said the campaign maintains West can be added to the ballot without disrupting the election, according to United Press International.
“We think there is time for changes to implemented to vindicate his constitutional rights in a meaningful way,” said West’s attorney, Matthew Haverstick, according to the outlet.
Haverstick suggested West would be amenable to some form of ballot access that does not require ballots to be reprinted in statements published by ABC 27.
“I think, given the constitutional rights, that any ballot access is better than no ballot access,” Haverstick reportedly told the outlet. “We’d be content if Dr. West got on some ballots, or even if there was a notification posted at polling places that he was on the ballot.”
West’s campaign has been more successful in the battleground state Michigan, where a judge ruled the presidential candidate must appear on the ballot and his campaign is now targeting minority voters.
News of West’s appeal comes as the Democratic National Committee (DNC) launches ads in Pennsylvania, and other battleground states, which target Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate who faced accusations of spoiling the 2016 election for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“Stein handed the White House to Trump, and she has no regrets about it. In fact, she wants to do it again,” said the party in a press release, after citing Stein’s candidacy in 2024 as evidence she is “not sorry she helped him win.”
Democrats’ efforts against other candidates was highlighted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shortly before he suspended his independent presidential campaign, when the former Democrat said the party was seeking to keep him off the ballot “all over the country” with lawsuits assigned to “highly politicized judges.”
After suspending his presidential campaign, Kennedy endorsed Trump.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Cornel West” by Cornel West.
