Court: Mon mayor can be on ballot in 49th
An order from Commonwealth Court allows Robert Kepics to have his name listed among Democratic candidates for the 49th Legislative District in Washingtonn and Fayette counties.
The court order directs the Department of State Bureau of Elections to accept nominating petitions from Kepics, who is mayor of Monongahela, as long as his originals are accompanied on or before Friday by affidavits that the “petitions remained attached, at all times, during circulation.”
Kepics’ downloaded petitions from the Department of State website were printed on only one side; instructions say the sheets must be two-sided, with the name of the candidate on one and the name and notarized signature of the circulator on the other.
The court also names March 4 as the deadline for objections to Kepics’ nominating petitions.
The Department of State did not oppose Kepics’ court case. He was listed last week at the petition-filing deadline as a candidate for the 63rd Legislative District in Indiana County, but the Bureau of Elections has since placed him in the correct part of the database. The mixup occurred because Washington County is 63rd in an alphabetized list of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties and bears this designation on some documents.
Filing for the April 26 Democratic primary in the district where longtime state Rep. Peter J. Daley is retiring were Donn Henderson of Fallowfield Township, who faced a similar “rejected” status as Kepics and achieved the same result in Commonwealth Court; Alan D. Benyak of Carroll Township, Randy J. Barli of Coal Center, Brendan Anthony Garay of California and Mark L. Alterici of Charleroi. Republican candidates are Melanie Patterson of Washington Township, Fayette County, and Donald “Bud” Cook of West Pike Run Township
Meanwhile, in the 18th Congressional District, Joseph DiSarro, chairman of the Washington & Jefferson College political science department, a Republican National Convention delegate hopeful whose nominating petitions were also rejected, has a hearing scheduled for Friday in Harrisburg.