Howie Hawkins, New York Green Party gubernatorial candidate, has this 14-minute talk on how to circulate petitions effectively. Thanks to Green Party Watch for the link.
Howie Hawkins, New York Green Party gubernatorial candidate, has this 14-minute talk on how to circulate petitions effectively. Thanks to Green Party Watch for the link.
Petitioning for ballot position should only be an option for getting on the ballot – not the only way. Let’s stop this nonsense of “learning how to petition” and start some legislation and lawsuits that hopefully will result someday in a law or a court ruling where paying a filing fee of a percentage of the salary being sought is an option to petitioning for a place on the ballot – primary or general election.
Come on guys. get out of the 20th century.
Back when 1000 signatures was the most required for a statewide office, then it was no big hassle. But when you have to collect tens of thousands – sometimes more – this is wrong.
When are we going to make ballot access for independent and 3rd party candidates a civil rights issue?
Agreed Alabama Independent, surely the cost of “verifying” signatures that number in the tens of thousands are more costly than it is to make a wider ballot paper. With some kind of filing fee this also ensures that the cost of running the elections is reduced, even if this only goes towards hiring a few more people to count the ballots come election day.
Here in the UK a £500 deposit (returnable if the candidate gets 5% or more of the vote) and 10 signatures ensures that only the diehard election jokers (such as the ever popular Monster Raving Loony Party) stand.
Richard,
It sounds like New York has a complicated petition form with sequential dates, witnesses, zip codes, etc. We don’t have that in West Virginia: only problem with our form is that there is not enough space for voters to squeeze their address in…pen ink almost always runs into the county validation blocks on the right side. I’ve always wondered how many that causes to be invalidated.
Have you ever thought about doing a comparison of petition forms? I think the signed witness idea is a good one given that the CPWV experienced several pages of bogus signatures from paid petitioners in 2008. Also, the page number block is good since we always end up numbering ours on our own.
MikeBloke. You guys in the UK are light years ahead of the US ref election freedom and equality. The arguments against “large ballots” or “clutterd ballots” is false. The politicians here are afraid of a strong 3rd party here like you have there. The size of the ballots here are caused primarily by long-worded amendments, referendums, or voting on “unopposed” candidates.
I understand you will have an referendum on some election reforms there in the near future. This would, as I understand, give 3rd party candidate for the House of Commons a better chance of victory. I hope the people of the UK will support this and other electoral reforms.
Maybe someday, the US will come out of the “stone age” and catch up.