Newly elected Alabama State Senator Robert Cameron “Cam” Ward says he will re-introduce his ballot access bill in 2011. Ward was a state representative between 2003 and this year. In his last term in the House, he introduced a bill to lower the non-presidential petitions from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, to 1.5% of the last gubernatorial vote.
The 2009 bill passed the House committee that handles election law bills, but it made no further headway. The 2009 bill also had a drafting error. It had been intended to include both independent petitions, and petitions for new parties, but it only covered independent candidates. The 2011 bill will not contain this error. Ward was elected to the Senate this month from the 14th district. He had no opponent in the general election and is a Republican. He represents the area south of Birmingham. Thanks to Joshua Cassity, chair of the Alabama Constitution Party, for this news.
Where is that Model Election Law ??? –
with EQUAL nominating petition requirements for ALL candidates for the SAME office in the same area ???
– with NO primaries needed.
P.R. and App.V.
Good question….where is the Model Election Law? It will be interesting if it passes this time.
I am hoping that a “trio” of ballot access bills will be introduced into the Alabama Legislature for 2011. Senator Ward will play prominently among these efforts.
Personally, I am opposed to any bill which still requires the collection of signatures – even if the total is reduced by half or 3/4. I have no problem with signatures on a petition as an option when a candidate or party has the resources for such. But paying filing fees should also be an option.
Equal nominating petitions are to show that a candidate is SERIOUS — and not to make elections a joke — see the many joke candidates in the U.K. for the House of Commons who get on the ballots via filing fees (which they generally lose by getting a low percentage of the votes).
A small signature requirement has always seemed fair to me. The candidate has to demonstrate a modicum of support, but there is no cost. No money is required to get on the ballot if the requirement is low enough for the candidate to collect his or her own signatures. Signature requirements should not exceed what a single candidate can collect individually, door to door, on a series of weekends. 500 signatures should be the maximum for any statewide or congressional office in any state.
Paying a filing fee seems like a tax designed to deny ballot access to those on the lower economic rungs. If some individual is excluded by the amount there is no justification for that amount not being lower or zero. It doesn’t demonstrate support, only greed and obstruction of free elections.
Securing signatures is not as easy as it used to be and especially for people who’ve never done it. People are more cautious for various reasons about signing a petition today than they were 50 years ago. To answer number 4 & 5’s posts, I do not advocate doing away with petitions. Yes, for those offices with 500 signatures as maximum, then okay. But 45,000 signatures – valid signatures – takes some doing.
To demonstrate “support” 3rd parties could be required to hold their own primaries and get at minimum percentage of the vote. A “non-partisan” primary for independent candidates would accomplish the same objective.
# 6 No shortage of folks signing petitions in the initiative States — CA, OR, WA, etc. etc. — due to the ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymander regimes in ALL 50 States.
For the clueless – the gerrymander stuff in the nearly dead 1787 Constitution is one giant EVIL political timebomb — went off in 1860 — can do so again with each *wave* gerrymander election. See the coming raving in Jan 2011 in the gerrymander Congress.
P.R. and App.V.
No shortage of folks signing petitions in the initiative States
It ain’t cheap to qualify initiatives. Alt parties generally don’t have that kind of money.
“Paulie says” makes an excellent point. The initiative activities are usually made up of people from one or other of the major parties. They have plenty of money. If I had $100,000 I could gather the some 45,000 valid signatures for a 3rd party in Alabama, election after election. People who sign initiative petitions are usually for the initiative in the first place. Just a matter of having enough petition circulators to locate the signers. Not so with 3rd partisians. It’s a struggle to convince a voter who may otherwise vote Dem or Rep to sign for ballot access for a party he or she isn’t going to vote for anyway. Its’ comparing “apples to oranges.”
I find it easier to get people to sign for ballot access than for most initiatives. The problem is that I’m not independently wealthy, so I can’t do it as a volunteer…it’s a full time job and I have to make a living like everyone else, and most alt parties don’t have the money to hire me for big jobs like Alabama.
I got about 20,000 signatures here personally back in 1999-2000 for the LP, that was the last time we had enough money to employ people to qualify for the ballot. Since then we have been relegated to only being able to get the prez candidates on with 5k valid…did that in ’04 and ’08.
For one person to get 20,000 signatures is a feat indeed. What “line” or “approach” did you use? What demographics did you concentrate on? My experiences have been somewhat different. Maybe I’m just timid and hate being told “no.”
I did a lot of colleges and gun shows primarily, some downtowns, polling places on election day, some gas stations, festivals/events, libraries, just wherever there’s people and I didn’t get booted.
Demographics? Anyone who looked like they were over 18 and answered in the affirmative to being a registered voter or willing to register right then and there.
Approach? Usually some variation of they just want to have a fair shot to be on the ballot, this has nothing to do with how you vote. Sometimes I’d throw in “in some states it’s automatic, but in some states like this one we have to get thousands of signatures.”
I very rarely get into party issue stances. That is usually not a productive conversation. They can have a short one sentence response if they ask; if they need more detailed info, I tell them to look it up online, unless the location where I am is very, very slow with very few people walking by.
The only exception is when I know I have an issue in common with everyone or virtually everyone there – for example, gun rights at a gun show or legalizing marijuana at a marijuana rally.