November of even-numbered years is the prime month in the two-year election cycle to ask state legislators to introduce bills. This is the time when state legislators are deciding what bills they will introduce in the new legislative session. State legislators are more active in odd years, than in even years, except in Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia. In the other 46 states, most law changes are made in odd year legislative sessions.
Some states have alarmingly early deadlines for bills to be introduced. The most extreme early deadline seems to be Indiana, where bill ideas must be submitted no later than December of even-numbered years. Indiana happens to be one of the states most in need of ballot access reform.
If you live in a state with bad ballot access, I am eager to work with you. E-mail me at richardwinger@yahoo.com. Half the states have voluntarily eased their ballot access laws during the last 30 years. But nothing good happens without asking.
We will be meeting with 2 nc house members that are sponsering a ballot access bill in north carolina. It will be Janurary when they do it or early feburary.
In North Carolina we already have a Sponsor and Co-Sponsor for the Electoral Freedom Act (a ballot access reform bill proposal) and will be working on finalizing the language on Saturday with them. We are on our way.
Apparently we were writing this at the same time. LOL
Did you talk to Glen Bradley in the NC House? He is a newly elected Rep who I suspect would support such a measure.
Yes, he is actually the Co-Sponsor I was referring to. Rep-Elect Stephen LaRoque (NC House 10) is planning to Sponsor the legislation, and Rep-Elect Glenn Bradley (NC House 49) is planning to Co-Sponsor the legislation. We also are working to obtain more co-sponsors. If you know of any other legislators either in the House or Senate that you think would be open to co-sponsoring the legislation or Sponsoring it in the NC Senate then please let me know. You can comment here I assume, or e-mail me at jmgreene@freethevotenc.com
Asking Donkey/Elephant gerrymander district monsters for more liberal (or even EQUAL) ballot access laws is like asking Jefferson Davis to free the slaves in the slave States in 1861.
Good luck.
Equal nominating petitions.
P.R. and App.V.
I hope to have at least one and possibly 3 bills introduced in Alabama. Each of these bills will address the greatest obstacles that major party legilators in past years have used as an “excuse” whey they don’t want to make ballot access easier for 3rd parties and/independents.
If I can get at least one senator and one house member to introduce this “trio” of bills, we will see then what “excuse” the legislators have. For the first time in some 135 years, the GOP will have complete control in Alabama. In past years, I usually got more cooperation from the GOP than Democrats. Now we’ll see what happens since the “shoes are on the other feet” now.
But as I’ve said before. If you Libertarians, Greens, and Constitutionalists in Alabama sit on your “butt” because none of these bills give you automatic ballot access, then don’t ask me to work too hard for them.
I know the Legislature may throw us a bone and reduce the signature requirements. This is not good enough. We should only have to collect signatures as an option. We should have the right to pay filing fees as an option, or hold our own primaries (in the case of 3rd parties). Anything less than this is discimination.
So, we’ll see who’ll join me.
Jordon,
Is Cameron DeJong one of the people you are meeting with?
In response to comment #6, the author of that comment lives in Michigan. In 2002, the Michigan legislature voluntarily passed HB 5237, which drastically eased the requirements for a party to remain on the ballot. That was one of the outstanding lobbying successes of the 2000’s decade.
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# 9 The 2002 Mich law was a scheme to divide the Donkeys in Michigan– has worked well — again in 2010.
Mr. R. W. was NOT present a meeting of the LPM state committee at which a top Elephant party hack showed up (with 2 goons) and made Hitler type demands that the LPM NOT nominate candidates in various Mich State Senate marginal gerrymander districts in 2002.
I thought the EVIL Elephant was going to have a stroke since he was unable to eat the tile floor in the building.
Some EVIL corrupt LPM so-called leaders made a secret deal with such EVIL Elephants NOT to nominate certain candidates.
The deal was detected and there was a purge in the LPM top so-called leadership — from which it has yet to recover.
Both the EVIL Donkeys and EVIL Elephants will only liberalize ballot access laws IF they see it as a way to divide and conquer the other main gerrymander gang — i.e. have Greens, Socialists, etc. on the ballots to divide the Donkeys.
For the clueless — ALL the main regimes in the U.S.A. are EVIL gerrymander monarchies / oligarchies (all with EVIL party hack control freak gang bosses) — claiming to be *democracies*.
——-
Equal nominating petitions
P.R. and App.V.
#8 Paulie: No, I don’t recall seeing the name as a candidate for office, or one that has won their seat. What district is it in NC, I may have overlooked them? At this point we are first approaching those who did well on the Free the Vote NC survey’s and those who have sponsored previous bills relating to ballot access or those who have showed any friendliness to the cause.
Never mind, looks like he moved to NH. I think he used to be in NC. Former Libertarian who got elected as a Republican.
Glen Bradley will be a great representative…he has things well planned out. He is endorsed by The Independence Caucus and The Republican Liberty Caucus. We are pleased with this man more than any other candidate in the state that won.
Also, I know North Carolina elected an Independent to the House (Bert Jones), as reported here at BAN. Seems like an easy supporter?
Well, it seems like it in one way but if you look at his survey that he sent to Free the Vote NC, it indicates that he isn’t too in favor of the wording we have in the bill. He believes in keeping % based requirements, instead of set numbers like our proposal sets forth, which are closer to our neighbor states and reality. Here is Rep-Elect Jones’ Survey on our website: http://www.freethevotenc.com/candidates_house_65.php
He ended up getting a “B” Rating from us, because of the reason explained above. Once we work on getting the wording finalized with Rep-Elect Laroque, we will definitely approach Rep-Elect Jones about co-sponsorship however.
#15 “[…] He ended up getting a “B” Rating from us,[…]”
…what year are they living in NC, the early 1800s? Free the Vote uses A, B, C…? Why use a sword when you have a simi-automatic?
Jordon, I trust your group had switched to ranked voting and multi-member districts months ago.
Everyone is so slow…you’re a drag on the team. At your speed, Battle of the Bulge is more than 250,000 years in the future at the current pace!
Join the Frees,
opposite gender #1!
Ruwart/Ogle for President,
[Libertarian/Free
Parliamentary]
Coalition in
2012!
MP Don Grundmann
[Constitution]
for US Senate (CA)
STOP the IRS!
“Why do you THINK they called it Google?”
The All Party System,
everyone is invited…
the programmer is Nott.
Unfortunatly I live in Texas where our new State Legislature will now be 67% Republican. There are few decent folks in that group, but for the most part they are bat-shit crazy. I’m sure you’ve seen one of our favorites Debbie Riddle on TV lately.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/11/anderson-cooper-stuns-gop_n_678650.html
Watch for more oppreesive laws in the future for our state.
What I’d like to get rid of in Texas, and the whole USA, is straight party voting. Sheeple ruin my day.
Alabama Independent, you can let me know about your bills…
travellingcircus at gmail.com (note two Ls in travelling)
415-690-6352
@Brad M, Republican Jeff Wentworth has introduced a bill to abolish the straight ticket device on Texas ballots. There is not a companion bill yet in the House it seems.
#17 Nope we haven’t switched to ranked voting or multi-member districts, because we are working in reality, in the real world, and North Carolina hasn’t switched its districts to multimember districts, they are still single member. They haven’t switched to ranked voting either (except for non-partisan judge race this past election, which my group did not monitor because we are focused on the State Legislature).
We are working in the real world, and to do that we must do our surveys how the real world works, this by no means means that we do not support ranked voting or multi-member districts, it simply is not our main area of concern right now because the first step in the right direction in NC is breaking down NC’s ballot access requirements. If we were to go your route and work for the multi-member and ranked voting first, then in NC with our ballot access laws, we would just end up with a bunch of Republicans and Democrats getting elected in those multi member districts since the other Parties aren’t allowed on the ballot. Believe me, there is a reason we are going about this they way we are, we are being realistic.
Oh SURE there is fella … …sure, and as soon as you keep doing everything you can do, you’re back at square one. Because your own group never reformed itself.
Do you think the Libertarian, Green or Constitution Parties are going to let you walk into their convention and start working with you, after you get equal ballot access for them?
Do you think Democratic and Republican Parties are going to let you walk into their debates, or walk into their conventions, after all the work you do?
The answer is no.
You’ll probably be building a house like MP Winger [Libertarian] on the beach every day for the rest of your life, and every year the high tide will come in a wash it all away.
Maybe the Environmentalist Party hasn’t gotten very far in 15 years since we started this “imaginary” parliament…but at least we have the tools and the stacks of ballots in place on which to build.
The multiple parties represented in our system are real people you know. Just because you want to blow them off as imaginary, that what you do is real, and what I do is not, doesn’t make it so. Every voter I register to vote in our system, remembers who did that, and they are real people. Whether the register with my party or not, the copy of the registration forms is proof that they do exist.
We have a solid foundation, and it’s not on the sandy beach at low tide. And we know who wants to coordinate in our battle plans, based on ballots cast as proof. We have proof of how every person voted, and it’s factored into the total equation to mathematical perfection.
I can’t force anyone to participate, but at least when they do, they know 1/100ths of the votes (technically 1/101ths or .99%) plus one vote, will elect one of the 100 names. With plenty of consecutively ranked names as back-ups.
Everyone loves the results, because the satisfaction level is 99% plus 100 votes, guaranteed.
Where you’re going, the satisfaction is far lower. The majority of your participants will be very unhappy with your results in the end.
In my opinion, when you build on that system, you’ll only help perpetuate that system. Funny thing is, they, the pluralists, get stronger because of your engaging their process.
I never asked, or really will ask, for them all to get along or work together on all the issues. That is why we have multiple Parties. I simply want these multiple parties to be recognized by the State as ballot qualified so as to give the people of North Carolina the choices that they deserve. How the Parties operate and the things they advocate are their business, and I will work within my Party to coordinate with other Parties where we are like minded, but that is not the purpose of what my organization Free the Vote NC is for. I’ve already explained that.
…I might add, it takes only 150 signatures to access the ballot in California. 150! (at least in 1994, could be different now) Do you think that’s helping the four ballot qualified parties get fair representation?
No, because they’re all fighting over single winner districts, and their own organizations are disfuntional and not able to coordinate with outsiders and indpendents.
#23 …and I’ve glanced at your web site. It looks pretty nice, but not very evolved. I’ll help you with some ideas….
I know it’s difficult to run a party without having people paying you monthly dues, but you’ll eventually figure it out. I’ll help you, by explaining how we do it, at the Environmentalist Party.
The Environmentalist Party had problems when we started in 1983, and when I took over as secretary in 1995. We wanted to let members vote, but we needed to pay for the stamp and envelope too.
Fortunately, the Internet came along, and allowed for free voting. We combined Internet voting with paper ballots, which are not free. A copy of a ballot is about 15 cents, and there are costs, but they are minimal. So the best way to conduct the voting, is to combine the voting with voter registration and Internet.
The problem is you are putting your emphasis on dues-paying while Internet voting is free, and copies of ballots are about 15 cents.
So charging $15. (?) for membership, while ballots cost 15 cents, yours is about a 1,000% mark up. Could be viewed as being…well, greedy, to those not online. Those online, shouldn’t pay a thing. Make it free, you call yourself free…
I’ve always explained The USA Parliament’s rules like this;
The USA Parliament, Inc.;
We allow you to participate for free, let you self categorize with any party category you wish, and all voters elect 100 equal units simultaneously with 1/101ths (.99%) plus one vote each.
All other parties;
They charge you money to participate, don’t let you self categorize as you wish, and you can’t elect a 100 member BoD with 1/101ths (.99%) plus one vote each for free.
So I’d say by having the system in place that you have pretty much puts up roadblocks, keeping out many potential voters. Yet you proclaim to be “Free the Vote”. It sounds hypercritical…free the vote, but pay us $15.
* * *
According to my system, the Constitution Party receives about one to two percent of the votes. So by placing so many roadblocks, you’re driving away 98 to 99% of the voters from your efforts by not including all voters. Plus you drive away more by charging $15., yet you claim to be a “Free”.
–James
Join the Frees,
opposite gender #1!
“Why do you THINK they called it Google?”
You advice is unneeded as you clearly miss the point of Party dues. Party dues (the $15 for Full Members in NC) is to fund the operations of the Party, keep up a website (which by the way was a donated design AND upkeep though I could have charged, so please stop with the slights and attacks on my desire to do whats right), keep a mailbox open, keep a toll-free phone system up so people can contact us, to fund the yearly Convention, to mail in ballot access petitions to the County Boards for certification, to purchase paper, inks and other supplies as well as to advertise where that is possible. We do not charge people just simply to give them a ballot, it is too keep the Party going, sadly, we do need funds to operate. Not to mention, Party’s are private organizations and can fund themselves, structure themselves (including membership and voting requirements) as they see fit. It is the State which has no right to restrict voting, you like to twist and grab at stuff without fully understanding it in an attempt to harm others. I ask that you cease and desist.
Not to mention, Free the Vote NC is in NO WAY tied to the Constitution Party of NC. The Constitution Party of NC is the one with the annual dues for being a part of the organization. Free the Vote NC is a completely separate and non-partisan entity which I started up in 2008 on my own and have built since then. To mix the two either says you are purposely mixing things up to try to harm, or you are simply careless, as they have two very distinctly different sites and information on them.
Of course we ask people for donations, how else are we to fund our operations, nothing these days is free. If I could do it all on my own money (note that I’m a college student, I work a job and participate in multiple organizations all volunteer) I’d do it in a heart beat cause I believe in the cause so much, but I cannot, so get off of my back.
LOL, Jordon.
You may want to try ignoring those posts instead of continuing to respond to them. Friendly word of advice. So long as you keep responding, you’ll keep getting more.
Thank you Jordon, I can see you greatly appeciate my suggestions for improving your operation. I can’t wait to see your web page evolve.
–James
Join the Frees,
opposite gender #1!
“Why do you THINK they called it Google?”
Paulie,
I should have known that, thank you for reminding me. LOL
Jordon