The Ohio Secretary of State’s omnibus election law bill, which includes ballot access improvements for new and previously unqualified parties, has been introduced. It is HB 260, by Representatives Dan Stewart and Tracy Heard (both are Democrats from Columbus).
I would love for this bill to past so third parties would have greater ballot access and be able to inform citizens that they have more decisions than just the 2 parties.
I will try to take a look at the text of the bill to see if the bill opens ballot access to independents who have no party, about 80% of Ohio registered voters.
HB 260 could take away more that it gives. It wwa introduced by Democrats. How about a bill to empower independents? I will contact the two sponsors after I read the bill. Why would Democrats give away anything without a negative side for the 80% who do not support the bipartisan monopoly? Non-affiliated independents.
Rich Stevenson
The Libertarian Party of Ohio helped write the Minor Party ballot access portion of HB 260– nearly all of our ideas were accepted. We 100% support the efforts of the Ohio SOS to correct Minor Party ballot access in Ohio, which was one of the worst in the nation. Our focus is only on Minor Party (specifically ours) ballot access in Ohio. We are very proud to have been “invited” to the table at many SOS meetings. We are now starting to work with the Ohio Assembly to gain their support. Of course, after two court cases–won by the LPO– I believe we have the attention of some election officials in the state of Ohio. It is just a matter of our 1st amendment rights to be able to freely associate with others and that includes the ballot box.
The Libertarian Party of Ohio is the 4th largest affiliate of the national LP.
http://www.LPO.org
If there are independents that had or have a concern with the HB 260, I ask “where were you” the past two years, when the LPO and others were fighting the fight in court, spending thousands of hours and dollars trying to change the course of ballot access in Ohio??? Feel free to come along now to try to make changes, but the ship has sailed and we are going to push it forward now. We have candidates waiting in the wings to run for office in 2010 and we will not be denied our rights any longer. The two party system has to change in this country.
Utopia might be to have no parties and all indepdendents, but that is not going to happen for the forseeable future, so lets’ at least get some other parties on the ballot. Heck, that is common practice in most other countries of the world.