On September 17, Pennsylvania Senator Mike Folmer received a bill number for his ballot access reform bill. It is SB 1578. It should be on-line at the Pennsylvania legislature’s web page by the end of the week. It defines a qualified minor party to be a group with registration equal to one-twentieth of 1%. If it were law now, the Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties would be on the ballot automatically. They would nominate by convention. The law is based on Delaware’s law. The bill sharply reduces the number of signatures for independent candidates.
There isn’t much time left this year for the legislature to act, but if it doesn’t pass this year, Senator Folmer will reintroduce it next year.
I hope all PA citizens will put pressure on the legislature to pass this law. Senator Folmer deserves a lot of praise for finally making this change. I hope they’ll also make the August 1 deadline official (or maybe a later one!) with this bill.
Senator Folmer is looking for Co-sponsors for this bill. If you live in PA please contact your State Senator and ask him/her to co-sponsor, or at least support, SB-1578 “The Voters’ Choice Act”. The bill is the Voters Choice Act drafted by the Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition last year (Greens, Libertarians, Constutution, Prohibition, Naderites and others). Folmer is one of the new Senators who knocked off long time incumbents following the pay raise scandal.
How sharply does it reduce signature totals, Richard?
Statewide 2,000 signatures. I don’t know about district office.
Right now, R’s and D’s need 2,000 signatures for statewide offices. Any other party or an independent needs to collect signatures equal to 2% of the highest total number of votes cast for an office in the previous state-wide election. For 2008, a statewide candidate would need to collect nearly 25,000 valid signatures to be eligible. In 2006, parties needed to collect 67,000 because of the huge turn-out of the 2004 presidential election.
More info is here: http://www.paballotaccess.org/
That’s why few Independent & Third Party candidates make the ballot in non-Presidential election years…that and the major parties get them off the ballot! (Romanelli in ’06)
2,000 sigs is just EXCELLENT.
What are the odds of this passing?
BAN readers should know that John Murphy, a candidate for Congress in PA’s 16th, played a part in getting this bill to the floor. He is part of PA’s Ballot Access Coalition, located at http://www.paballotaccess.org.
Senator Folmer also endorsed Ron Paul–I remember his name.
Thanks for the info, Brian. Points out the hypocrisy of the major parties, doesn’t it? Thanks are due to Sen. Folmer, and John Murphy and the Ballot Access Coalition.
Major improvement there. Hope it passes.
Be even nicer if party candidate signatures were removed entirely in lieu of a filing fee and/or nomination at convention or primary.
I think it makes sense to have the option of either obtaining signatures or paying a filing fee, but having ballot access based entirely on money though could be a dangerous thing, IMO.
2,000 is better then that is now.
But be warned! Minnesota requires roughly that amount for a non-major party candidate, and then sometime in the 1960s or 1970s shorten the time period it would be circulated to two weeks in the summer.
Get the word out!