Two members of the California legislature are pondering whether or not to introduce a bill to ease the ballot access petition requirements for statewide independent candidates. They have at least gone to the trouble of asking the Legislative Counsel to draft language for such a proposed bill.
Californians for Electoral Reform is working for this goal. The existing California law requires statewide independent candidates to obtain 173,041 valid signatures for 2010. In the entire history of the U.S., no candidate has ever overcome a petition requirement greater than 134,781 signatures. That was done by Ross Perot in California in 1992. A “candidate petition” means a petition that names a candidate.
In 1973, the legislature appointed an independent commission to suggest changes in the Election Code. The commission, headed by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters and the president of the League of Women Voters of California, recommended that the statewide independent petition be set at 10,000 signatures. The commission also recommended 3,000 signatures for independent candidates for U.S. House and State Senate, and 1,500 signatures for Assembly candidates. The legislature did not act on that recommendation, although it did pass some of the other suggestions of the commission.
Current California law effective January 1, 2011 contingent on passage of the Top 2 Open Primary:
Elections Code 8062. (a) The number of registered voters required to sign a nomination paper for the respective offices are as follows:
(1) State office or United States Senate, not less than 65 nor more than 100.
(2) House of Representatives in Congress, State Senate or Assembly, Board of Equalization, or any office voted for in more than one county, and not statewide, not less than 40 nor more than 60.
Yes, but that only gets them on the primary ballot, and their chances of being on the November ballot are slim. Candidates in the California blanket primary (used in 1998 and 2000) who placed 2nd (for Congress and state office) averaged 30% of the total vote cast.
Better a 1% petition to get on the November ballot, than a requirement of getting 30% of the vote in the primary.
I should have said 25% in comment #2 above, not 30%. I was getting mixed up between Washington and California.
Hi! I have been compiling independent candidate ballot access petition signature requirements for the states with the easiest requirements,
and some of them allow a candidate to get on the ballot by paying a fee rather than getting petition signatures.
For the 13 easiest states to get on the ballot, go to http://usmjparty.com
and click on “Forum”
at the top middle of the page.
For each state I give the link to the Secretary of State Elections Division for that state.
Cris Ericson
What century will the party hack Supremes detect that —
SEPARATE is *** NOT *** EQUAL — even for ballot access in public elections.
See Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954 — for public education
NO primaries are needed.
Equal nominating petitions in the ONE [general] election.
P.R. and A.V.
CA —
100 percent / 80 assembly folks = X pct.
100 percent / 40 state senator folks = Z pct.
Solve for X and Z — so high tech — especially for the party hack Supremes with the Donkey/Elephant fixations in their party hack brains.
Orly Taitz should consider being a candidate for California Secretary of State.
#2 The primary election is the first (ie “primary”) step in a two-step election process. The secondary election, commonly referred to as a general election, would be contested between the two candidates with the most support among all voters.
California has used a similar system for election of its county officers for almost a century, and even uses it for the statewide election of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
#7: Elections for local officials differ from state and federal elections in two big ways: (1) The national parties do not get involved in local elections, and (2) local officials provide services, rather than being involved in policy issues.
These are the reasons why 49 states– all but Washington– provide that the parties may officially nominate congressional candidates.
And in 48 states– all but Washington and Louisiana– the parties may officially nominate candidates for all or most state offices.
#7 And what is the reason for Mississippi providing that parties may officially nominate local candidates?
Do the national parties get involved in local Mississippi elections, and are local officials involved in policy issues?
#9: The answer to both questions in your second paragraph is “no.”
As you know, I favor nonpartisan local elections for Mississippi.
Under the one-party system, elections, of course, were decided in the Democratic primary, with a Democratic runoff if necessary. These were de facto nonpartisan elections, in which everyone was eligible to vote. It was only when the Republicans began running candidates that problems developed.
Five times between 1966 and 1979, the Mississippi legislature enacted nonpartisan elections (aka “open primaries”) for our state AND local elections. For reasons that I have noted several times here, implementation of this change was blocked each time.