Harrisburg, Pennsylvania - Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia's socialist White House campaign has announced they will appeal a Democratic-backed effort to block them from the 2024 Pennsylvania ballot.

De la Cruz and Garcia, who represent the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), are taking steps to overturn a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court judge's ruling that they had submitted flawed paperwork and ordering them off the November ballot.

The decision followed a court challenge supported by the Democratic donor-funded, anti-third-party Clear Choice PAC. Democrats have also attacked the candidates' ability to appear on ballots in the key battleground state of Georgia in a lawsuit brought by the state party's general counsel.

In the Pennsylvania case, Democratic-aligned challengers argued that seven of the PSL's 19 presidential electors named in the paperwork were registered as Democrats and that six had voted in the state's April 23 Democratic Party primary, violating a political disaffiliation provision.

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De la Cruz has dismissed the accusations as trivial technicalities and rejected media reports seeking to cast the socialist candidates as disruptive of the democratic process.

"The idea that third party candidates are 'spoilers' helping [Republican nominee Donald] Trump shows how politically bankrupt the Democratic Party is," the presidential contender said in a press release.

"Because they are unable to defend their own dismal record in office – allowing inflation to run rampant, letting Covid-era social programs expire without replacements, sending enormous sums of money to fuel the war in Ukraine – they are left with no argument other than to say 'the other candidate is worse'."

The news of the planned appeal comes as De la Cruz hits the streets of Chicago to protest the Democratic National Convention. She stands alongside thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators calling for an arms embargo on Israel.

The PSL campaign said they had collected nearly 11,000 signatures from Pennsylvania voters in their all-volunteer-run ballot drive and submitted paperwork properly.

If successful, the big money-backed effort to bar De la Cruz and Garcia would strip Keystone State residents of an option to vote beyond the corporate Republican and Democratic parties.

"We want to present an alternative that expresses what people actually do want – a new system where working people have the power, not the billionaire class," De la Cruz insisted.