On July 5, the California Assembly Elections Committee passed SB 205 on a party-line vote, with all Democrats in favor and all Republicans opposed. It outlaws paying workers on a per-registration card basis, when that worker is trying to persuade people to register into particular parties. Mark Hinkle, national chair of the Libertarian Party, and C. T. Weber, former state chair of the Peace & Freedom Party, both testified against the bill. The only method left for those two parties to remain ballot-qualified is to increase the number of people registered in those parties.
The bill now goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. It has already passed the Senate.
Exactly how EVIL ANTI-Democracy are the gerrymander MONSTERS (aka Oligarchs) in the CA legislature ???
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. — to save Western Civilization — from the EVIL oligarchs.
Sheesh, California, will you ever learn that your policies on just about everything stink on ice?
How many new registrants does each party need to remain ballot qualified?
C. T. Weber is actually the current chair (2010-2012) of the Peace and Freedom Party.
@3, the next date for testing whether parties remain ballot-qualified is at the end of 2014. The number of registrants required will depend on turnout for the gubernatorial election in November, 2014. It will probably be around 105,000. The most recent registration figures are
Peace and Freedom — 58,470
Libertarian — 92,246
Green — 113,118
American Independent — 417,567
It might be possible to get legislation passed to change this rule.
So the P&F party is in really serious trouble according to the above stats. That would be a shame if they fell off.
Under California law, a candidate for a voter-nominated office uses the party preference disclosed on their voter registration (or may optionally have a blank space).
The only value of party qualification are (1) presidential primary; (2) presidential candidate; (3) sample ballot endorsement; and (4) election of party officers.
# 6 — 4 public things too many for the robot party hacks.
What a strange policy, but I guess it does help prevent fraud somewhat. Just another cause to outlaw any kind of registration but the online kind. Just send everybody to http://www.registertovote.org or some other site like that and have em do it there. Can’t fool a computer after all.
This is terrible news.
Mark my words. Everyone who supported this bill will be thrown out of office.