This newspaper story from Lewiston, Maine, discusses the Americans Elect petition drive in that state, which began recently. The Maine petition requires 28,639 valid signatures, and must be completed by December 8, 2011. Furthermore, only voters who are not registered members of the three qualified parties (Democratic, Republican, and Green) may sign.
This petition procedure has been in place since 1976, and only once before has any group successfully used it. In 1995, the Reform Party completed this petition.
Maine has other, easier ballot access procedures for minor parties. In Maine, a statewide independent needs 4,000 signatures, and he or she is free to choose any short partisan label (as long as it doesn’t mimic the name of a qualified party). That label is printed on the general election ballot next to the name of the candidate. The easier independent petition method is the normal means for placing a minor party on the ballot, but Americans Elect is using the more difficult party petition because Americans Elect doesn’t know who it will be running for president, and the candidate petition requires the candidate to be named on the petition.
Do the AE leader folks have the ability to hire a lawyer with ANY brain cells about —
Separate is NOT equal. Brown v. Bd of Ed
and
Each election is NEW and has ZERO to do with any prior event in the history of the universe – except the number of actual voters at the prior election in the areas involved.
In the article it claimed that former Unity08 founder Hamilton Jordan had joined AE. I can’t imagine he is very helpful since he has been dead for over two and a half years. Time to give the article’s author and fact checker a swift kick in the rear end.
“…only voters who are not registered members of the …qualified parties …may sign.” So the sooner a party qualifies, the better, because the next party in line to attempt qualification will have that many fewer voters from which to collect signatures. What a load of Pelosi!
“…but Americans Elect is using the more difficult party petition because Americans Elect doesn’t know who it will be running for president”
This whole fiasco is becoming reminiscent of the long-running bit from the early days of SNL: “This just in, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.”
I’d say this is unlikely to work in their favor here in Maine. They’ve got two months to collect a huge number of signatures while temperatures drop and the farmers markets and agricultural fairs end. I’ll be glad that they fail as well.
“Furthermore, only voters who are not registered members of the three qualified parties (Democratic, Republican, and Green) may sign.”
Are you sure about that?
@5 I don’t think they will fail. They have a lot of money and if they start falling short they will up the pay. If they are still short, they can hire teams of people to be at every polling place in the state on election day.
Also in their favor, right now there are a lot of petitioners in New England working on other projects, who will become available later on if they are needed in Maine.
#5 I don’t think you are correct. AE just landed 1.6 million signatures in California.