On Friday, November 13, an Assistant Attorney General for Tennessee conducted depositions of the former or current state chairs of the Tennessee Libertarian, Constitution, and Green Parties, in that time order. Together the three depositions lasted over 7 hours. This is in the lawsuit that challenges the means by which new or previously unqualified parties get themselves on the ballot in Tennessee, called Libertarian Party of Tennessee et al v Thompson, 3:08-cv-63.
To a certain extent, of course, the state was trying to gather some sort of evidence that would show that any or all three of the plaintiff political parties are not substantial, or that they haven’t really tried to use the existing procedures. No petition for a new party in Tennessee has succeeded since George Wallace qualified the American Party in 1968. Even the Reform Party tried to qualify as a party in Tennessee, but never succeeded. Tennessee is the only state in which the Reform Party ever tried to qualify as a party and never succeeded. All minor party candidates who have appeared on the Tennessee ballot since 1973 have used the independent candidate petition procedure, which only requires 25 signatures (except that independent presidential candidates need 275 signatures).
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Separate is NOT equal.
Every election is NEW and has ZERO to do with any prior election.
Much too difficult for the armies of MORON lawyers and judges to understand.
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If all fifty states had such easy presidential requirements for independent ballot access, there would no be ballot access problem in any state for any Presidential candidate. Signatures of 275 voters could put every Presidential hopeful on each State ballot. My hopes would be fulfilled.
All other independent candidates for public office require only 25 signatures each. Independents could run on their own public policy platform or use the platform of any minor party they support. Or the platforms of any number of minor parties.
Beyond easy ballot access that would leave only the substantial problem of reaching enough voters to get over 37% of the vote to win in a three-way race. We need a bottom up structure to get that job done. http://cs2pr.us/hamco/usaiva A coalition moderate non-partisan party in each precinct in each state.
I would settle for Ohio having Tennessee’s ballot access problem. I need over 2500 valid signatures to get on the ballot for Congress in 2010 for OH District One. That is 100 times as many signature as the 25 needed in TN. http://cs2pr.us/Rich
Tenessee sounds too good to be true.