Congressman Ron Paul’s bill to outlaw restrictive ballot access for independent candidates for the US House, and for the US House nominees of unqualified parties, is HR 3600. It sets a ceiling of 1,000 signatures. The bill does not include US Senate candidates or presidential candidates.
There is more need for ballot access reform for US House, than for the other federal offices. The state ballot access laws for US House are so bad, no independent candidate for that office has qualified under Georgia’s existing law since 1964, and no minor party candidate has qualified in a regularly-scheduled election since 1942. Also, North Carolina has never had an independent candidate for US House on its ballot, and South Carolina has never had an independent candidate for US House on its ballot.
The South Carolina historical record might easily confuse anyone, because in the past an Independent Party was on the ballot in South Carolina. When one looks at old election returns for South Carolina, one needs to know that the South Carolina term for “independent candidate” is “candidate nominated by petition.”
Other states with extremely severe ballot access requirements for independents for U.S. House are California and Illinois.
Why need any signatures at all? The ballot access rules should be the same for the D’s, R’s, L’s, G’s and anyone else, period.
Why not just have non-partisan elections, whereby everyone qualifies the same way and ALL candidates are on the same ballot, it is used & works at the Municipal level in alot of places.
Has any other representative shown support for this proposal? In fact, do we have any other ballot-access reformers in federal office at the moment?
I applaud Ron Paul’s concern for including everyone in access (I plan to vote for Ron Paul for a number of reasons), but I have to ask why we need ballot access reform at all.
Don’t we have a Write-In selection on every ballot? Any potential candidate can run for office without a single signature of approval or raised dollar.
If that candidate’s name is written into the Write-In and he or she is in the majority, then that’s who the people want and that is the winner of the election…period.
We need to start becoming more aware of the existence and usage of the Write-In. We don’t need legislation, approval, countless signatures, millions of dollars, or any of the other bullshit associated with getting independents in office. We have the power right now with the Write-In. We need to start using the power we already have.
By the way, I’m fully aware of the regulations that exist in several states, as well as the fact that at least 6 states don’t allow Write-Ins.
My point is that the more We the People (as opposed to We the Sheeple) simply do it anyway, the more our government will have to take notice and begin the steps toward enacting what the people want.
Remember who is supposed to control who.
Without strong protection for the right to vote and the right to be a candidate, what ‘we (the people) think or feel does not matter too much.
Yes, a write-in campaign is possible (in several states), but it is rarely pratical.
Aside from issues dealing with correct spelling, their is (IMHO) a problem with harsh ballot access laws.
If ever there was a time when independent or third party candidates were need, it is now…
Is it possible for this web site to give state by state requirements for getting a new party authorized.
What is needed is a way to nominate people and get them on the ballot. I realize that some states might have cumbersom requirements and some states might make it relative easy.
Can people be put on by ballot? if so, number of signers required?
Is a state convention required? if so, what is needed to become official?
I am running as an Independent and getting this signatures needed are paramount to asking someone to let you do brain surgery on them in the bathroom. People have no clue about the use of Petitions in Georgia nor do they understand the Independent movement although many of them say they are Independents.
The system is designed to keep Independents and others off the ballot. There is nothing in the US Constitution that says elections shall be limited to participation in one of 2 parties. In Georgia there is no party registration. You can pull either party’s ballot on primary election day and then change back on the general election day as both party’s are listed on the ballot.
However despite all of its shortcomings I will never again consider myself a democrat because of the manner in which they allowed the current Presidential race to degenerate into race and gender bating fued.
To DK: Not only do some states prohibit voters Writing-In anyone, there was one I discovered while doing some research that requires a $1,693 fee to paid by the candidate at time of declaring their ‘Write-in’ candidacy. How absurd is that?!
One problem with the way things are is that each state, and each county is empowered to do whatever the h*ll they want with very little awareness or oversight. The kind of awareness and oversight I’m talking about is the General Public. Y’know, in some places, when they talk about “transparency” in voting, they literally have clear voting boxes–brilliant!
The system has gotten away from us in the last few generations, but we’ve seen so many aberrations in “Normal” elections recently that more and more, we’re all waking up to the dirty fact and will not be tolerating it quietly anymore.
P.S. Judy Baker, I made that form to help me and my fellow volunteers gather information on behalf of an organization called The Longhouse Coalition. I never saw the completed 50-state spreadsheet, but could probably get it for the asking.
My process was to do a Google search for ‘elections + [the state]’ and it would reveal the web address and oftentimes a phone number. In the beginning, I attempted to get the info from the state’s website but that quickly proved chaotic and/or unspecific, so I burned a bunch of cell phone minutes and got a much better result.
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