Montco Forward Party candidate scores Pa. ballot access for general election. He’s just a piece of a bigger puzzle

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The Forward Party has achieved ballot access for two Pennsylvania row offices, meaning voters won’t need to write their names in to choose them.

Attorney general candidate Eric Settle, from Montgomery County, and treasurer candidate Chris Foster, from Allegheny County, will appear on the ballot, just like their major-party counterparts.

Craig Snyder, chief political strategist of the Pennsylvania Forward Party, called it “a testimony to a lot of volunteers working a lot of hours.”

The Pennsylvania Department of State requires third-party candidates to obtain 2,500 signatures to get on the ballot. Settle and Foster easily surpassed that benchmark, with each picking up more than 4,000.

Somewhat surprisingly, the pair of Forward Party candidates avoided any legal challenges.

The self-proclaimed centrist party had to overcome several hurdles to score these spots on the ballot. These rules are admittedly confusing, held together by a string of caveats, and vulnerable to lawsuits.

The state’s Election Code technically requires them to obtain 33,000 signatures to get on the ballot. The deadline to file the documentation was Aug. 1. Both candidates failed to reach that threshold, but Snyder isn’t worried.

“The last date under the Election Code to challenge ballot access for any reason — including potentially that one — was the 8th of August, so we’re well past that,” Snyder said.

Former GOP New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and former Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang started the Forward Party in 2022 with the goal of establishing a viable third option for voters.

Settle, an attorney who worked under former Gov. Tom Ridge, and Foster, a tennis professional, launched their campaigns in March.

Lindsey Williams Drath, Forward Party CEO, said she often fields questions about the viability of constructing a third party in the current political climate. Some tell her it’s not feasible.

“The reality is that the two legacy parties right now have made the rules of engagement,” Drath said. “They have set the rules on the field. You’ve got state legislatures across the country who continue to raise the barrier for access for new competition. In order to change the game, we’ve got to get in there and we’ve got to play the game and play by their rules, which means becoming a nationally recognized political party.”

Their goal for the 2024 general election in Pennsylvania is to qualify as a minor political party. To do that, the candidates have to hit a crucial 2% vote threshold. If that happens, Pennsylvanians could begin to officially register with the Forward Party.

Snyder is confident Settle and Foster can appeal to centrists who currently can’t find a home with Democrats or Republicans.

“These are two offices that ought to be more in the category of a referee rather than a member of one of these two teams. They’re a lot of Pennsylvanians, we think, who believe that,” Snyder said. “We’re going to communicate with them and we’re going to get to that threshold.”

Drath said this work to build party infrastructure is happening across state lines.

“What we’re doing in Pennsylvania is case in point. Getting that ballot access, running candidates for statewide office, having functional infrastructure and leadership in the state — all of those things are things that the FEC is going to look at when we apply for federal party recognition. That is our North Star,” Drath said.

The party hopes to accomplish this by 2028.