On September 11, opponents of Arizona’s HB 2305 submitted 146,028 signatures. If the petition has at least 86,405 valid signatures, the bill will not go into effect in 2014. Instead, the voters will vote in November 2014 on whether to repeal the bill.
Among other things, the bill makes it virtually impossible for small qualified parties to nominate candidates by write-in vote in their own primaries, and extremely difficult for their candidates to get on their own party’s primary ballots. See this story about the full list of provisions in the bill, and why the opposition to it is so strong.
Good!
Thank you Arizona Libertarians! The other minor parties are in your debt!
It’s great to see such an effort from such a diverse coalition to challenge legislation that is so unfair to non-major parties.
By passing HB 2305, the Arizona Republican Party managed to unite all of Arizona’s other ballot qualified parties. While it is understandable that the Arizona Green Party and the Arizona Libertarian Party found common cause against the Arizona Omnibus Election Bill, I must admit that I was somewhat surprised by the extent of the Arizona Democratic Party’s efforts during the petition drive.. I understand that America’s two-party political system is designed to guarantee that either a Democrat, or a Republican wins every elective office. I don’t like it, but I understand their reasoning. What I don’t like is when one of those political parties tries to rig the system so only they can control the reigns of power. That is why I oppose Arizona’s restrictive photo identification law and this attempt to restrict ballot access to smaller political parties and their candidates. I don’t mind when my candidates lose in a free and fair election, but I loathe not being allowed to even get my candidates on the ballot. I will be voting to repeal HB 2305.