A petition was filed in the Pennsylvania Commonwealth court to remove her name from the May 19 Democratic primary ballot<\/a> on April 1. The court found that Sultana\u2019s petition contained a “material defect” that misleads voters, specifically her failure to disclose her occupation beyond listing \u201cself-employed,\u201d officials said.<\/p>\nThe court concluded the omission was legally insufficient under the Pennsylvania Election Code and warranted setting aside the petition.<\/p>\n
In the petition, the objectors maintained that marking “self-employed” without further information has the potential to mislead electors.<\/p>\n
Sultana\u2019s appeal argues that the Commonwealth Court imposed a requirement that does not exist in Pennsylvania law, turning a truthful statement into grounds for disqualification.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not just about one word \u2014 this is about ballot access and the right of voters to choose their candidate,\u201d Sultana said. \u201cI told the truth. I am self-employed. There was no fraud, no misrepresentation, and no confusion.\u201d<\/p>\n
The appeal further argues that even if additional detail had been required, it would have been a minor technical issue subject to amendment \u2014 not a reason to remove a candidate supported by hundreds of voters.<\/p>\n
Sultana also warned that the ruling could have broader consequences.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this decision stands, it opens the door to arbitrary enforcement of election laws that can be used to block candidates from the ballot,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s dangerous for democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sultana emphasized that the stakes go beyond her campaign, noting that voters in the district deserve the opportunity to make a real choice in the primary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis election is about whether voters are allowed to decide if they want to re-elect a long-time incumbent with a record of standing up with republicans on voting against raising the minimum wage, against expanding protections for women and LGBTQ+ communities, and in alignment with policies that harm immigrant communities, and who don\u2019t thing is a democrat and aligned with a different party \u2014 or if they\u2019re ready for new leadership that actually reflects Democratic values,\u201d Sultana said.<\/p>\n
Sultana has also filed an emergency application for a stay, asking the Court to act quickly given the May 19 primary election.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m fighting to get back on the ballot because this decision shouldn\u2019t silence voters,\u201d she added. \u201cThe people of this district deserve a real choice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Taiba Sultana, candidate for Pennsylvania State Senate in the 18th District, has filed an appeal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,3956,72015,5936,3934,72016,23732,72017,9741,72018],"class_list":{"0":"post-159030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-appeal","12":"tag-ballot-access","13":"tag-commonwealth-court","14":"tag-democratic-primary","15":"tag-nomination-petition","16":"tag-pennsylvania-state-senate","17":"tag-self-employed","18":"tag-taiba-sultana","19":"tag-voter-choice"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159030","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=159030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}