Last month, Americans Elect Party submitted approximately 21,000 signatures to qualify as a party in Nevada. This is three times as many signatures as are legally required. By January 7, the Secretary of State will probably have determined that the petition has enough valid signatures.
Who said it was hard to get a new party on the ballot and that was one reason there was no Constitution Party in Nevada.
The Constitution Party is ballot-qualified in Nevada, but it has the name Independent American Party.
Americans Elect is funded by several very wealthy individuals. With enough money, just about any ballot access petition for new parties and independent candidates can be completed. In 1988 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states may not make it illegal to pay petition circulators. So, in effect, strict ballot access petitions are similar to giant, discriminatory filing fees.
Unlike the scumbag Scott Ashjian, it looks like this group got on the honest way.
Allen, do us a favor and get a clue.
The way the Tea Party got on was honest. The law was amended in 1999 to make ballot access very easy (except for President) and that is a good thing. The Tea Party used the procedure that passed in 1999, which only requires 250 signatures.
The Constitution Party suffers a lot from severe ballot access laws. For example, it has never placed a presidential candidate on the ballot in Arizona, D.C., Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, or Oklahoma. It is not seemly for a Constitution Party activist, like poster #3, to criticize any state for having easy ballot access.
How soon before the Donkey/Elephant oligarchs join forces and wipe ALL third parties and independents de facto OFF the ballots — claiming some need for public safety, national security, etc. etc. ???
The way the Tea Party got on was honest.
= Wrong, the signatures Ashjian got were very questionable and our SoS didn’t bother to check them.
The law was amended in 1999 to make ballot access very easy (except for President) and that is a good thing. The Tea Party used the procedure that passed in 1999, which only requires 250 signatures.
= The problem is the law is too easy for it to be abused; any one man with a bad agenda and enough power could easily get on here- Ashjian being an example. Now there’s the Tequila Party that’s trying to get on the ballot. The law is a joke.
If the legislature chooses to up the signature requirement or make it a little harder for morons to abuse the political system, then that’s alright by me.
The Constitution Party suffers a lot from severe ballot access laws. For example, it has never placed a presidential candidate on the ballot in Arizona, D.C., Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, or Oklahoma. It is not seemly for a Constitution Party activist, like poster #3, to criticize any state for having easy ballot access.
= However we were able to get write-in status various times in those states.
Checked out their website-
http://americanselect.org/
Apparently they’re only doing this to recruit Ross Perot like candidates for a ticket that they would support in 2012 and they don’t want to make themselves a permanent third party and they claim to be non-partisan. Obviously the people in the old Unity 2008 organization is behind this.
…Sounds more legit then Ashjian’s joke of a party to me.
I can’t help but imagine that the money and other resources wasted by the IAP on challenging the Tea Party could have been spent getting more votes for the IAP gubenatorial candidate.
#6 So is the joke that the Tequila Party gets on the ballot in Nevada or your concenr that they might get more votes than the Constitution Party?
#7 Ross Perot may end up being considered a sane candidate compared to whoever get nominated via the Internet. Depending on what ever nominating criteria the AE comes up I suspect that Ron Paul, Sarah Palin and Easter Bunny fanatics with computers will be all over these luxuriously rich opportunities for ballot access.
I can’t help but imagine that the money and other resources wasted by the IAP on challenging the Tea Party could have been spent getting more votes for the IAP gubenatorial candidate.
= The party coffers weren’t used in the lawsuits. Plus we only put our resources into races that we can win or are capable on winning.
#6 So is the joke that the Tequila Party gets on the ballot in Nevada or your concenr that they might get more votes than the Constitution Party?
= What ‘constitution party’? The only party here in Nevada that’s constitutionalist is the IAP.
However the people that are forming the Tequila Party are actually on our side and are only doing it as a publicity stunt to prove how pathetic the ballot access laws are here.
Cody,
You’re truly moronic for saying ballot access should be more difficult in Nevada. Good on Richard Winger for putting you in your place. “Unseemly” doesn’t even begin to describe how foolish you’re behaving about the Ashijan/Ballot Access issue.
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Trent,
You are moronic for covering up my being let go from IPR- seriously, fuck you.
Plus the Libertarians here in Nevada felt the same way about Ashjian and didn’t oppose us, but supported us.
Only political parties that are legit should be allowed on the ballot because a third party, or third parties, can never elect people to office and undo the two-party system if there are all these different parties & groups on the ballot that splinter the vote and therefore keeping the Dems and GOP entrenched.
In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the major parties would intentionally take advantage of loose ballot access laws and start up their own little groups that would run candidates and take away, or split the votes for a third party that’s a viable threat and capable of electing people to major offices.
When we get rid of the two-party system, we should replace it with a 4 or 5 party system; 4 or 5 parties in power in the state and federal government is enough!
In fact its people like Trent and others that think ANY kind of group or political party that should be given ballot access on a silver platter are morons.
Why? Because unless someone that wants to start a new third party has billions of dollars & legal firepower- the ONLY true way to weaken the current political system is to join a well organized third party and work to build it up further. You minus well be working for the two major parties if you go start another party on your own and therefore fracture the third party vote and waste resources that could’ve been put into the more viable and better organized third party in existence.
Seriously, we have ENOUGH damn third parties in America, the majority of them being small and petty little groups that do nothing, and we don’t need any more of them- we need to strengthen the existing ones that are large, organized, and a viable choice (Green, Libertarian, Constitution) in the first place!
Wow, they turned in 3 times the signature requirement in Nevada. That sounds like overkill to me.
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