The way I understand the issue mistakes were made when Steve Chronister circulated
Nomination petitions. The primaries are closed so people running as democrats/republicans can only have the same party sign the Nomination petitions.
That means that only democrats can sign for democrats running for office and the same for republicans. The other requirement is you must be a current registered voter.  Apparently he had democrats sign his petitions. A complaint was filed and was about to go to court. If the court ruled against him he would have been barred from running. So he withdrew as a republican and will now run as a ‘independent”.  
 
I think he will easily win relection.
 
 
 
“The withdrawal comes on the heels of a Tuesday challenge to more than 100 signatures on his nomination petition and a Wednesday order that he would have to defend each signature by 9 a.m. today for a 10 a.m. hearing.”
 
Chronister will have to register as an independent by April 20 and will have until Aug. 3 to collect a minimum of 919 signatures to be eligible for the general ballot in November, according to Nikki Suchanic, the director of the county Voting & Elections office. He said he intends to get 9,000 signatures to avoid another challenge.
The 919-signature count is 2 percent of the vote received by District Attorney Tom Kearney, the top vote-getting county row officer last election with 45,935 votes, Suchanic said.”
http://www.ydr.com/local/ci_27740841/york-county-commissioner-steve-chronister-withdraws-from-york
 

My understanding is:

1) anyone can sign the petition of an independent candidate.
2) he can't use his old petitions because they were filled out and submitted as a Republican seeking a spot on the primary ballot. He can go get signatures from the same people who signed his first petitions, but he's got to fill out new petitions.
3) attorney Joseph Gothie filed the challenge on behalf of Donald Jeffries Jr. of Red Lion, Monica Seitz of Dallastown and Richard Slaugh of Red Lion.
4) not soon enough

**p.s. I did some quick Googling. Donald Jeffries attended Kelly Henshaw's reception in February and was a "silver sponsor" for the event according to the Facebook page. Richard Slaugh donated to Kelly Henshaw's previous political campaign. And Monica Seitz is friends with Kelly Henshaw on Facebook. That's enough evidence for me to figure that Kelly Henshaw's campaign used these three as the challengers to ensure that it wouldn't be viewed as underhanded or dirty politics. I don't care either way, I just enjoy rooting around the interwebs for this kind of stuff.

Last edited by opendoug (3/27/2015 1:35 pm)