Green Party's Gilliland exits Allegheny County Council race

The 2025 Allegheny County special election has one less candidate running for the County Council at-large seat, after Green Party member Theron Gilliland Jr. withdrew his candidacy following accusations of submitting papers with insufficient nomination signatures.

Gilliland submitted 163 double-sided papers containing a total of 5,302 signatures supporting his running on Aug. 1.

Just a week later, however, three county voters — Oscar Press of Mt. Lebanon, Amanda Digregory of Marshall-Shadeland and Amelia Benson of Swissvale — filed a petition in Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas to set aside Gilliland’s nomination papers.

The petition alleged that 1,708 of the signatures were deficient and did not meet the requirements to qualify his nomination.

Court documents revealed that Gilliland withdrew on Monday, after meeting with opposing counsel and the Allegheny County Department of Elections.

“The candidate agreed to not defend against the challenge and withdrew his candidacy,” said Judge John McVay Jr. in a handwritten note on court documents.

Gilliland could not be reached for comment.

Pennsylvania Election Code states that the “minimum number of signatures required on nomination papers for candidates nominated for any office elected by district is equal to two percent of the largest vote cast for any officer,” as described in instructions from the state.

In the last general election for county races, in November 2023, Corey O’Connor was elected county controller with 242,933 votes.

This meant that in order to qualify his run for office, Gilliland needed 4,859 nomination signatures.

The petition voided 10 of the nomination pages in their entirety, citing that they failed to: identify the county of signers, identify the office Gilliland was running for, identify the political body, submit an out-of-state circular statement, collect signatures within the collection window and collect signatures prior to the date listed on circular statements, court documents said.

The voided pages left Gilliland with only 3,594 sufficient signatures, which put him under the required number of nominations needed.

The county voters’ attorneys Robert Daley and Abagail Hudock were unable to be reached for immediate comment.

Gilliland’s withdrawal leaves two remaining candidates running in November’s special election: current at-large Allegheny County Councilman Mike Embrescia, who replaced Councilman Sam DeMarco in February, and independent Alex Rose.