On March 19, North Carolina Senator Jim Jacumin (R-Connelly Springs) introduced SB 731. It lowers the petition for a previously unqualified party from 2% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 10,000 signatures. It lowers the statewide independent petition from 2% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 5,000 signatures. It lowers the district independent petitions from 4% of the number of registered voters, to 3%. The Constitution Party of North Carolina deserves the credit for getting this bill introduced.
Thank God for the Constitution Party!
“The Constitution Party of North Carolina deserves the credit for getting this bill introduced.”
What in the world are you talking about? The Libertarians and, maybe, the Greens are almost certainly the parties that deserve the credit. Jacumin is my Senator, by the way.
Jordan Greene of the Constitution Party persuaded Senator Jacumin to introduce the bill; that’s why I said what I said. If that’s not true, let me know.
The Constitution Party of North Carolina was in full support of the bill, and did help get the word out to people to call to support the bill. But the actual original bill was drafted by myself and I worked with Senator Jacumin to get the bill introduced, strictly on a non-partisan basis on behalf of the North Carolinians for Free and Proper Elections PAC (www.NCFPE.com).
I did e-mail the Libertarians (and Greens I believe) to send out information to their members about contacting Senator Jacumin (among others) about sponsoring the bill. Since I self-affiliate with the Constitution Party of NC, I have no way of knowing what the Libertarians and Greens did with this information though, but I am sure that they did all that they could to help as well.
Oops. My apologies. I shouldn’t have assumed. At least I said “almost certainly.”
And I did call Senator Jacumin, thanks to Jordan and a forwarded notice.
If third parties are willing to work together on ballot access law reform, it may help get bills introduced and passed.
One of the major problems I have had in the upper Midwest, is that the minor parties really do not want to work together on ballot access law reform issues.
Yes sir. That is one of the reasons, beyond simply a means to focus on this specific issue, that the NCFPE was formed, sort of like Ballot Access News, to keep all Parties, Minor and the two-major if they so choose to listen, informed about the problem and a source to come together to work to better NC’s election system. Thanks TJ for calling Senator Jacumin!