Incumbent state Sen. Marty Flynn and the candidate challenging him in the Democratic primary for his 22nd state Senate District seat both face nomination petition challenges seeking to remove them from the primary election ballot.<\/p>\n
Newcomer Jeffrey Lake of Clarks Summit, who announced late last year plans to challenge Flynn in the Democratic primary, is one of two local residents to challenge petitions filed by Flynn, a Dunmore Democrat who\u2019s served as a state senator since 2021. The other is Lawrence \u201cLarry\u201d Sparano of La Plume Twp., whose wife, Sharon Soltis Sparano, is unopposed for the Republican nomination for state Senate in the 22nd district that includes parts of Lackawanna and Luzerne counties.<\/p>\n
Flynn ally Lawrence \u201cLarry\u201d Wynne of Scranton, meanwhile, is challenging Lake\u2019s petitions.<\/p>\n
To appear on Democratic primary election ballots, Flynn and Lake had to secure 500 valid signatures on their nomination petitions from registered Democrats in the district.<\/p>\n
![\"Jeffrey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CVC-L-ENERGY-LAKE-0219.jpg\")
Jeffrey Lake, a candidate challenging Democratic state Sen. Marty Flynn for his seat in the 22nd Senatorial District, poses a question to the panel during a community roundtable on rising energy costs Tuesday in the Luzerne Bank building in Wilkes-Barre. (STEVE MOCARSKY \/ STAFF PHOTO)<\/p>\n
Larry Sparano contends Flynn\u2019s petitions fail to contain the \u201crequired number of properly ascribed signatures.\u201d<\/a> He\u2019s specifically challenging 1,075 of Flynn\u2019s 1,384 signature lines, arguing they\u2019re out of compliance with requirements of the state Election Code.<\/p>\n \u201cFor many of the nomination petitions, for example, there are incorrect, illegible or otherwise invalid circulators (accounting for 646 signature lines),\u201d his challenge notes.<\/p>\n Among other examples, Sparano raises numerous issues with petitions circulated for Flynn by Alpesh \u201cAl\u201d Patel, alleging dozens of such signatures are invalid for multiple reasons.<\/p>\n Many of those signatures, the signers\u2019 addresses and their listed dates of signing appear to be written in the same or very similar handwriting styles. In some cases the \u201cprinted name of elector\u201d section of the signature line only includes the signer\u2019s initials.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is an issue of similar if not exact handwriting on various petitions that are part of the body of the complaint,\u201d Sharon Soltis Sparano, the presumptive Republican nominee for the state Senate seat, said when reached Thursday. \u201cWe found this to be relevant enough to bring to the court\u2019s attention for them to review it and make a decision in this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n Efforts to reach Patel were not immediately successful. Asked about the Patel-circulated petitions, Flynn said: \u201cI haven\u2019t even seen them to be honest with you.\u201d<\/p>\n Flynn also contends his challengers didn\u2019t properly file their objections, but described the challenges as \u201cpart of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c(If) they want to challenge them, challenge them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Wynne\u2019s challenge<\/a> claims Lake only submitted 440 valid signatures, arguing 318 of the 758 he garnered are invalid for various reasons. Along with other grounds for objection, Wynne contends some of Lake\u2019s petition signers aren\u2019t registered to vote, aren\u2019t registered at the address they listed, aren\u2019t registered in the district or filled out a signature line illegibly.<\/p>\n \u201cThis challenge is exactly what\u2019s wrong with politics, insiders using technicalities to try to block voters from having a real choice,\u201d Lake said in a recent statement. \u201cLet\u2019s be clear: we are confident we have more than enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. These challenges are nothing more than an attempt to intimidate and distract.\u201d<\/p>\n Lake argues in his challenge<\/a> that Flynn\u2019s submitted candidate affidavit is \u201cincomplete and facially defective\u201d because the line where candidates list their voting precinct was left blank.<\/p>\n Hearings on the challenges will take place next week at the Pennsylvania Judicial Center in Harrisburg. The hearing on Wynne\u2019s challenge of Lake\u2019s petitions is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday<\/a>, while hearings on Larry Sparano\u2019s<\/a> and Lake\u2019s challenges<\/a> of Flynn\u2019s petitions will take place Thursday, March 26, at 10 a.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Incumbent state Sen. Marty Flynn and the candidate challenging him in the Democratic primary for his 22nd state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[836,201,182,803,139,28,50,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-142954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-election","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-politics","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}