Eric Sundwall, Libertarian Party nominee in the special U.S. House election in New York’s 20th district, was removed from the ballot on March 25 by the Board of Elections. He collected 7,000 signatures in 10 days to meet a requirement of 3,500 signatures. But slightly over half of the signers put their mailing address on the petition without also indicating their township. Sundwall is already in court fighting the ruling. See this story.
The story implies that he will not challenge the ruling in court.
They are so picky when a 3rd party candidate makes a tiny mistake. However, they seem to be lenient when a major party candidate slips up (i.e. McCain’s Indiana primary petition and candidates who neglected to file before the deadline in Texas).
The arcane, outdated, and outrageous New York Election Laws have to change.
Under the current laws, third party and independent candidates for public office have to bear a far greater burden than do the candidates of the two major parties in attaining ballot access.
Year after year, cycle after cycle, the voters are denied the opportunity to vote for some of the best candidates because they are not members of the two major parties in New York.
These types of “laws†are common in third world nations where candidate suppression runs parallel to voter suppression. But in New York? Why?
Example: Running for Congress – Major party candidates have to gather 1,250 signatures from their party members. Third party or Independent candidates have to get 3,500 and most often they are challenged and thrown out.
I was one of the fortunate independents who made it onto the ballot in 2004 after my party petitions for the Democratic party were challenged. I know the system is rigged and so does everyone who runs, everyone who challenges, and everyone who throws candidates off the ballot.
Eric Sundwall submitted over 7,000 signatures to be on the ballot in the upcoming Special Election on March 31st . Using arcane and little know regulations the powers that be were able to squeeze out over 4,000 of those signatures.
How outrageous is it to tell over 4,000 people that their signature don’t count and they stand for nothing?
The Assembly and Senate must review and reform these laws that, in fact, work against the good of the people of our state.
Morris Guller
Lexington, New York
Re: Libertarian removed from ballot TU
— just file a federal suit as was done in Schulz v Williams/Berman in 1994 —
sufficiently informative to find the voter in the centralized BOE voter database
Has their been any sort of effort to form a lobbyist coalition to try and change the laws or push a ballot measure?