On June 30, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Stengel issued an order in Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Cortes, e.d., cv-12-2726. It says that for 2016, statewide petitions in Pennsylvania will need exactly 5,000 signatures. If the petition has candidates for the three statewide state offices that are up this year (Attorney General, Auditor, and Treasurer), they also need at least 250 signatures from each of five counties. If they do not, the presidential and U.S. Senate candidates named on that petition would be safe, but candidates for the three statewide offices would not be on the ballot.

It is bizarre for Judge Stengel to impose a county distribution requirement this year, because such a requirement does not exist in the statutory law (although it does for primary petitions), and the judge has been informed that there are 16 precedents striking down county distribution requirements, including one in Pennsylvania in 1979.