According to this story, over 100 people rallied in New York city to hear City Councilmember Bill De Blasio call for ballot access reform.

Some of the quotations from the rally suggest that the speakers don’t know the history of ballot access laws. One speaker tied Boss Tweed to restrictive ballot access laws. But when Boss Tweed was in power in New York city, there were no government-printed ballots. Back in the 1870’s and 1880’s, voters were free to make their own ballots, so no one could be kept from running. The first government-printed ballots in New York were created in 1890, but the technicalities that make petitioning so hazardous in that state were not added until the early 20th century.