Petitions to be placed on the ballot for the May Primary are all done, so in theory we know who will be on the ballot now. Of course, members of your own party can challenge your petitions, either by stating they have a fatal defect, that you don’t have enough valid signatures, or that you are not actually eligible. There’s a lot more legalese than that, but none of you are here to read that. You want to know who is getting challenged. So I’ll tell you about what I know.

Taiba Sultana’s petitions to challenge State Senator Lisa Boscola in Senate District 18’s Democratic Primary are being challenged. Sultana has a rough history with petitions. Two years ago her petitions to challenge State Rep. Bob Freeman made waves when Boscola’s name was actually on her petition as a signer, but at an address that doesn’t exist and in a town which Senator Boscola doesn’t live in. Senator Boscola accused her of forging the signature, which was on a petition circulated by now-County Councilman Nadeem Qayyum, Sultana’s husband. Freeman decided not to challenge her petition, and he ended up beating her by over 50% of the vote, winning every municipality in the district. Supporters of Senator Boscola are apparently not giving Sultana the opportunity to get crushed this time, and they are challenging her petitions. I’m not sure what the challenge is this time, but we’ll hear soon.

The other challenge I heard about was quite interesting. Someone is apparently considering a challenge to Carol Obando-Derstine’s nominating petitions for the 7th Congressional District. I was sent the petition above (I screen shotted part of it) as an example of allegedly forged signatures in her filing. The person sending it also says there are other issues, and someone thinks they can drive her under 1,000 valid signatures with their collective challenges. I was told by a source closer to Carol that she filed over 1,800 signatures and they would be shocked if it’s an issue. I won’t post who circulated this petition, but they do work in government. If I didn’t know better, I’d think some of the Harrisburg boys who are pushing Crooksy want to send this woman a message about who she supports. Then again, Crosswell would also benefit from being the only Lehigh County candidate in the race. Hell, if we’re honest, all three guys would benefit at least a little if she was driven off the ballot. They better really have the goods though, challenging and failing would look bad to insiders (like that matters to any normal people though). You can be the judge of at least the sheet above, but it definitely looks like the same handwriting to me. One sheet wouldn’t be enough to win the challenge though.

We’ll know by 5pm tonight. I’m sure there’ll be more.