On February 14, the Alabama Senate Constitution, Campaign Finance, Ethics & Elections Committee passed SB 15 by a vote of 5-0. This bill lowers the number of signatures for a statewide party to 5,000 signatures. For parties that are only trying to get on the ballot in part of the state, the bill lowers that petition requirement from 3% of the last gubernatorial vote within that district, to 1.5%, but with a cap at 5,000. The bill also lowers the petition requirement for independent candidates. Thanks to Josh Cassidy for this news.
Yea!! Alabama Indy’s going to have an easier go at trying to get Jack Fellure on the ballot if this passes. (But only if it goes into effect before the ’12 elections.)
What are the current requirements for comparison?
The current law requires 44,829 signatures.
Happy to learn that SB 15 passed out of the Senate committee. While I still prefer SB 55 as the fairest bill and one that brings more equality to all parties and candidates, I like to think perhaps the Senate committee (and hopefully so will the Legislature) supported SB 15 as a compromise over SB 55 which I suspect most of them philosophically are opposed to. In other words, “we ask for the sun, but hope they at least toss us the moon.” I can live with it.
I am very concerned that the two party system is broken and there is no easy avenue for a third party. What is being done in California in this area, if anything? How does such a reform get done? Who is doing it? I would like to see a more open bsllot so you did not have to register Republican or Democrat to vote in the primaries. Is that unreslistic? What do you support?
#5, I support a true open primary, in which there is no such thing as registration by party, and on primary day any voter is free to choose any party’s primary ballot.
Registration by party is useful for the party organizations. But states that have registration by party have done cruel things. In Maine, 2,000 signatures of party members are required to put a candidate on the statewide primary ballot of any party, regardless of how many registered voters it has. This makes it virtually impossible for a small qualified party to nominate anyone.
If Maine didn’t have registration by party, then any voter could sign and the process would be much freer. Also, states with open primaries generally are immune from the siren call of top-two primary advocates. Top-two proponents love to label “top-two” as an “open primary”, but when a state already has an open primary, they can’t do that.