CALIFORNIA MAKES TWO BALLOT ACCESS IMPROVEMENTS

During September, California improved two ballot access laws:

Deadline for Parties to Qualify: AB 1419 moves the deadline for parties to qualify from January to July. It The legislature passed it August 30. Governor Jerry Brown is expected to sign the measure, since his office influenced the language of the bill.

If this bill had been passed years ago, history would have been different. Ross Perot was forced to launch his Reform Party as early as September 1995 because he knew that the California deadline was in early January 1996, and the Ohio deadline was in November 1995.

Since then, the deadlines of both states have struck down (California’s in 2012, and Ohio’s in 2006). If those decisions had come down before 1995, Perot probably would have announced the Reform Party in 1996. That would have given Perot more time to plan the party’s structure before he launched it.

If the California deadline hadn’t been so early in 1948, the founders of the Henry Wallace Progressive Party would probably have waited to launch the party, and conceivably they might have decided not to create the party at all. The California petition drive, which required collecting 275,970 valid signatures, was so daunting, the party started collecting the signatures in August 1947, to meet the March 18, 1948 deadline. Conditions for success for the new party seemed far greater in the summer of 1947 than they did in the spring of 1948. In February 1948, the Soviet Union captured control of Czechoslovakia. When the Progressive Party defended this action, the party lost a great deal of support because it became apparent that the party would not break with the Communist Party line. Wallace later said his biggest mistake in 1948 was not condemning the Czech coup.

If the California deadline hadn’t been so early back in 1936, when Father Charles Coughlin and the Huey Long movement formed the Union Party, that party would have been on the ballot in California, and its presidential campaign for Congressman William Lemke would have been stronger. The party wasn’t formed until June 1936, the same month as the California deadline. Lemke failed to get on the California ballot.

Even as long ago as 1912, the early California deadline made a difference. Theodore Roosevelt didn’t bolt from the Republican Party until June, and by then it was too late to get the new Progressive Party on the California ballot. Although the law seemed to allow Roosevelt to qualify as an independent candidate, he and his supporters didn’t like that option, and they took over the Republican Party of California and had that party choose Roosevelt for President, even though the Republican national convention had chosen President William Howard Taft. As a result, Taft was off the ballot in California.

The improved deadline in California will be somewhat helpful in persuading other states with early deadlines to improve those deadlines.

Residency for petitioners: SB 213 allows any person to circulate any type of petition, regardless of the residence of the circulator. It was signed into law on September 9. The old law was so restrictive, it did more than ban out-of-state circulators. It even prevented residents of California from circulating a petition for a candidate for district office, if the petitioner lived in some other district.

The California rules on residency had not been declared unconstitutional by any court, except that in 2008 the State Appeals Court had struck down the law that said a city initiative could only be circulated by a resident of that city.

On September 5, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Appel upheld the California top-two system which the voters passed in June 2010 as Proposition 14. He amended his decision on September 20 and again on September 23. Rubin v Bowen, RG11605-301.

The case had been filed by the Peace & Freedom, Libertarian, and Green Parties. It maintained that because the evidence shows that minor party candidates never appear on the general election ballot (unless only one major party member ran), Proposition 14 violates the voting rights of voters who wish to vote for members of minor parties in the general election.

The chief weakness of Judge Appel’s decision is that it never mentions the holding in Munro v Socialist Workers Party, a 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the old Washington state law. The old Washington state law required a blanket primary, a primary in which all candidates run on the same primary ballot and all voters use that ballot. The old Washington law said the top vote-getter from the ranks of each party should appear on the ballot, but no candidate could appear on the November ballot who had not polled at least 1% of the primary vote. The Socialist Workers challenged the 1% vote test.

The holding in this case is that "there is no constitutional difference" between a petition to get on the general election ballot, and a primary vote test to get on the general election ballot. Therefore, the 1% vote test was constitutional because the Court had previously upheld petition requirements of 5%, and obviously if 5% is constitutional, then 1% is constitutional. (continued)

Proposition 14 requires some candidates to poll as much as 34% in order to get on the general election ballot. Clearly, 34% is far in excess of the 5% support that represents a ceiling on how much support can constitutionally be required. So if Judge Appel had acknowledged the holding in Munro, he would have held Proposition 14 unconstitutional.

Justice Byron White, near the end of his Munro decision, added an unfortunate gratuitous comment that when a minor party candidate can’t appear on a general election ballot, but the candidate does appear on a primary ballot, the harm done to the candidate and his or her voters is "slight."

This was dicta, because the Washington case wasn’t about a system that kept all minor party candidates off the general election ballot. A footnote in the Munro decision says that of 45 minor party and independent candidates who ran in the primary in since Washington passed the 1% vote test, 40 of them passed the 1% vote test. The Alameda County decision relies on White’s statement that the burden is "slight", and uses this term repeatedly throughout the decision.

White’s 1986 sentence is responsible for the conclusion in the Alameda County decision that the burden is "slight." But, it is obvious that when all of a party’s candidates are kept off the general election ballot, that is not a "slight" burden. It is likely that the plaintiffs will appeal.

The Justice Party has a lawsuit pending against Hawaii‘s February petition deadline for new parties to get on the ballot. Justice Party v Nago, The state may settle this lawsuit, by interpreting its existing law on how independent presidential candidates get on the ballot to include minor parties as well. Because the independent presidential deadline is in September, if the independent presidential procedure is interpreted to permit party labels, then newly-qualifying parties would also have a late deadline (for President only) and the case would be moot.

On September 6, the Vermont Supreme Court unanimously upheld the ruling of a lower state court that put the Justice Party and its presidential nominee, Rocky Anderson, on the ballot in 2012. Anderson v State, 2013-vt-73.

Vermont allows a petition sheet to include signers from different towns. But Vermont requires the petitioning group to submit the original sheets to each town clerk, and then come back later and collect the sheets from the town clerks and take them to the Secretary of State. The Justice Party wanted to make photocopies of each petition sheet that had signatures from more than a single town. The purpose of that desire was that, if a sheet had signatures from two towns, then the party could give the original sheet to one of the town clerks, and the photocopy to the other town clerk.

The state forbade photocopying the sheets before submission, so that the party had to take such a sheet to the first town, and then, after the first town clerk had finished checking that sheet, the party had to take that same sheet to the second town clerk, and have that clerk check signatures. This not only required a lot of driving between towns, it consumed valuable time. The Supreme Court agreed with the lower court that the Secretary of State’s rule was not needed and was burdensome.

On September 11, opponents of Arizona HB 2305 submitted 146,028 signatures on a referendum petition. The petition requires 86,405 valid signatures, so the petition is virtually certain to succeed.

Assuming the petition is valid, in November 2013 voters will be asked if they wish to repeal the law. Among other things, HB 2305 makes it virtually impossible for minor party candidates to get on their own party’s primary ballot.

On September 5, U.S. District Court Judge W. Keith Watkins, a George W. Bush appointee, upheld Alabama’s March petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties. Stein v Chapman, middle district, 2:12cv-42.

The Alabama petition requirement is 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. In 1991, the Eleventh Circuit had struck down Alabama’s April petition deadline, and at that time the petition requirements was 1%. Judge Watkins said that because the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties were able to place their presidential nominees on the ballot as independent candidates (without the party label), therefore that was good enough. The independent presidential procedure only requires 5,000 signatures and the deadline is in September.

In order for Judge Watkins to uphold the March deadline in the face of the 1991 precedent, he ruled that the 1997 U.S. Supreme Court opinion Timmons v Twin Cities Area New Party has removed virtually all ballot access protection for minor parties to have their name on ballots.

Timmons was a decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution permits a state to make it impossible for two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate and have both party labels appear on the ballot. Timmons said that when "a particular individual" is kept off the ballot with the desired party label, that is not a severe burden. But it doesn’t follow logically that keeping a party name off the ballot for all of a party’s nominees is a slight burden.

Judge Watkins did not mention the U.S. Supreme Court opinion Norman v Reed, a 1992 decision that explicitly said party labels on the ballot are entitled to protection. Nor did he mention any of the precedents since 1997 which have struck down early deadlines in other states for new parties, even when the petition deadlines in those states for independent candidates were more favorable. Those cases were from California, Ohio, and Tennessee. The plaintiffs will probably appeal.

Alabama: on September 16, an independent candidate, James Hall, filed a lawsuit against the requirement that he submit 5,938 valid signatures by September 24 in order to be on the ballot for the special U.S. House election, First District, being held on December 17. He submitted 2,835 signatures by the deadline, and is the only independent or minor party candidate who filed a petition. The state rejected his petition because it didn’t have enough valid signatures.

Hall is depending on court precedents that say that when the normal petitioning time is far shorter than usual, the number of signatures should be reduced, or else more time should be provided. One of those precedents, from the Eleventh Circuit, ruled in 1982 that Georgia should give more time to a Citizens Party nominee for State Senate who needed approximately 2,000 signatures and whose petitioning period had been shrunk (due to late redistricting) from 180 days to 50 days. The new Alabama case is Hall v Bennett, middle district, 2:13-663.

New Mexico: the Constitution Party is about to file a lawsuit against the Secretary of State, who removed the party from the ballot in July. The law on when a party should be disqualified is unclear, but it has been interpreted for the last 15 years to mean that when a party submits a valid petition, it is on the ballot for the next two elections. The Constitution Party submitted its petition in 2012. The existing Secretary of State is disregarding the precedents that would also let the party be on the 2014 ballot. The lawsuit also points out that the law says when a party is disqualified, all its members, and the party itself, should be notified no later than five months after tthe election. The state still has not notified the party’s members that their party is being disqualified, and the state was four months late getting the notice to the party’s officers. If the Constitution Party wins the lawsuit, that will also help the Green Party, which is in the same situation.

Ohio: two lawsuits were filed in September against the new law that bars out-of-state circulators from working on any type of petition except independent presidential candidate petitions. One case is Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted, southern district, 2:13cv-953. The other, which concerns initiatives, is Citizens in Charge v Husted, 2:13cv-935.

Tennessee: the Libertarian Party, which has a nominee in a special legislative election being held in December 2013 in Memphis, is about to file a lawsuit to enable its candidate to be listed as a Libertarian instead of as an independent. Independent candidates only need 25 signatures and the candidate has already completed that petition. The law on how a party gets on the ballot was held unconstitutional earlier this year, and the state has not written a new one. The state is appealing, but the appeal won’t be decided quickly enough to determine if the Libertarian Party should be allowed to appear on the ballot in the upcoming special election.

Democracy Resources, a professional petitioning company, has charts on its web page that let anyone know how many signatures are required for 2014 statewide initiative petitions, what the time period for collecting signatures is, and other details. Every state that has the statewide initiative process is listed. See democracyresources.com and choose the "resources" link. The charts also let potential customers know how much it would cost to do an initiative in each state.

The Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs has issued a report showing the number of minor party and independent candidates for U.S. Senate on the ballot in each state, in each election, back to 1914. Blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2013/09/the_third_wheel_states_with_th.php. The report is authored by Political Scientist Eric Ostermeier. New Jersey has had the most candidates.

In August, Virginia asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the lower courts, and uphold the state law against out-of-state circulators. On September 19, seven other states filed an amicus brief, also urging the Court to hear Virginia’s appeal. The states are Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming. The Oklahoma Attorney General wrote the brief. All of the states have Republican Attorneys General except for Hawaii and Wyoming. Ironically, Hawaii has never banned out-of-state circulators.

The brief says out-of-state circulators might commit fraud, and if they do, the state will have trouble questioning them or prosecuting them. The brief also suggests that permitting out-of-state circulators enables special out-of-state interests to interfere. That argument does not make much sense in the Virginia case, because the Libertarian Party had filed this case to allow out-of-state circulators to work on its 2012 presidential petition, and presidential elections are the concern of all U.S. voters.

The Court probably won’t say whether it will hear this case until November.

During the 19^th century, major parties had their presidential conventions in May or June. But in recent years, both conventions have been in August and/or September. Recently, Reince Priebus, national chairman of the Republican Party, has been saying he wants a June 2016 Republican national convention.

In order for such a date to be feasible, states with June presidential primaries would need to move them to May or earlier months. Those states are California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Utah.

On September 19, Ohio State Senator Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) introduced SB 193, to revise the definition of "political party" and the procedures for a party to get on the ballot. Seitz wants the bill to take effect for the 2014 election. His bill would remove the four qualified minor parties from the ballot and require them to submit 55,809 valid signatures by July 2 if they want to be on the ballot.

Also, the petition would need 500 valid signatures from half the state’s U.S. House districts. It would require the petition to list all the party’s nominees. Furthermore, if the petition were valid, then all the nominees listed on the petition would each need another petition for themselves. Statewide nominees would need 500 signatures and district and county nominees would need 25 signatures.

Because the petition must list the nominees, newly-qualifying parties would need to choose their nominees before the petition starts. In practice, getting 55,809 valid signatures would take most parties at least six months, which would mean they would have to choose the presidential nominee in the year before the election.

The bill has a hearing in the Senate State Government Oversight and Reform Committee on October 1. The bill does improve the existing statutory deadline for a new party to get on the ballot. However, because that deadline was declared unconstitutional in 2006, that part of the bill is not much of a practical advantage. The bill also lowers the vote test from 5% for the office at the top of the ticket (Governor in midterm years and President in presidential years) to 3%. Only three minor parties have polled 3% for President in the U.S. during the last 90 years, so in practice, very few minor parties would ever meet the vote test proposed in the bill.

If the bill passed, Ohio would require more mandatory signatures to put a party on the ballot in 2014 than any other state except California, North Carolina, and Oklahoma.

California: on September 11, the legislature passed AB 857, which says that at least 10% of the signatures on statewide initiative petitions must be collected by unpaid circulators. Governor Jerry Brown has until October 13 to decide whether to sign or veto the bill. The Sacramento Bee and the San Francisco Chronicle have asked that he veto the bill.

California(2): Assemblymember Richard Gordon (D-Menlo Park) may introduce a bill in 2014 to ease the definition of political party, to a group that either has registration equal to one-half of 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, or which polled at least .33% for President. He has arranged for legislative counsel to draft the bill and he will introduce it if minor party activists gain legislative support for the idea.

Massachusetts: the Joint Committee on Election Laws will hold a hearing on HB 639 on October 16. The bill would make it more difficult for a group that is not a qualified party to obtain registered members. A group becomes a qualified party if at least 1% of the state’s voters register into it. The bill would say that a group could not start to obtain registered members until it had submitted a petition of 500 names. Also, if the group did not attain registration of at least one-fourth of 1% after two years, it would lose all its registrants and would need to start all over.

New Hampshire: Representative Steven Smith (R-Charlestown) says he will introduce a bill in 2014 to ease ballot access for minor parties and independent candidates.

New Jersey: on September 9, Governor Chris Christie vetoed AB 4237, a bill that would have moved this year’s elections for state office from November 5 to October 16. Because New Jersey is having a U.S. Senate election on October 16, moving the state offices to the same date would have saved $12,000,000. The bill had passed the legislature in June and the Governor was required to decide by September 9; he waited until the very last day.

Henry Wallace’s Campaign and the Future of Postwar Liberalism, by Thomas W. Devine, 408 pages, hardcover, 2013.

Thomas Devine is a history professor who has spent many years studying the Progressive Party of 1948, which ran former Vice-President Henry Wallace for president. He wrote his PhD dissertation about the party in 2000, and he wrote the Oxford Encyclopedia article about the party in 2012. Other books have been written about the party, including a 3-volume work, Gideon’s Armyby Curtis MacDougall; and Henry A. Wallace, Quixotic Crusade 1948by Karl M. Schmidt. But Devine’s book is specifically written to analyze the relationship between the Henry Wallace campaign and the Progressive Party, on the one hand, and the Communist Party of the United States and the government of the Soviet Union, on the other hand.

Parts of the book could not have been written until fairly recently. Some of the book depends on material from the Soviet Union that could not have been known until after the archives were opened up in the 1990’s.

The book analyzes the motivations of all the chief actors. The Communist Party was rebuffed by the national board of the CIO late in 1947, and the party needed another organization that would, hopefully, attain a certain degree of prominence and influence, and which would carry the message that the growing tension between the United States and the U.S.S.R. was the fault of the United States. The party believed that a new party would fill that need. Of course many non-Communists were also interested in creating the Progressive Party, and a majority of the party’s activists and national convention delegates were not Communist Party members. But, the party was able to control the party’s message. The book explains how it managed to do that, and how the party was injured as a result. The book is very engrossing.

STATE	REQUIREMENTS		SIGNATURES COLLECTED				DEADLINES
	FULL PARTY	CAND	LIB’T	GREEN	CONSTI	Amer-Ele	Party	Indp.
Ala.	44,829	44,829	0	0	0	0	in court	in court
Alaska	(reg) 8,925	#2,975	already on	*1,828	*131	0	June 1	Aug. 26
Ariz.	23,041	(est) #31,000	already on	*4,500	0	already on	Feb. 28	May 28
Ark.	10,000	10,000	*14,000	*13,000	0	0	April 12	May 1
Calif.	(reg) 103,004	65 + fee	already on	already on	304	already on	Jan. 2	March 7
Colo.	(reg) 1,000	#1,000	already on	already on	already on	*0	Jan. 8	July 10
Conn.	no procedure	#7,500	can’t start	already on	0	can’t start	– – –	Aug. 13
Del.	(est.) (reg) 650	(est.) 6,500	already on	already on	401	0	Aug. 19	July 15
D.C.	no procedure	(est.) #3,900	already on	already on	can’t start	can’t start	– – –	Aug. 6
Florida	0	pay fee	already on	already on	already on	0	Sep. 1	July 15
Georgia	50,334	#50,334	already on	can’t start	can’t start	0	July 8	July 8
Hawaii	706	25	*700	already on	0	0	Feb. 20	June 10
Idaho	13,102	1,000	already on	0	already on	0	Aug. 30	March 14
Illinois	no procedure	#25,000	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	– – –	June 23
Indiana	no procedure	#34,195	already on	0	0	0	– – –	June 30
Iowa	no procedure	#1,500	0	0	0	0	– – –	Aug. 15
Kansas	16,776	5,000	already on	0	0	*0	June 2	Aug. 4
Ky.	no procedure	#5,000	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	– – –	Aug. 12
La.	(reg) 1,000	#pay fee	already on	already on	110	*719	May 15	Aug. 15
Maine	28,639	#4,000	0	already on	0	0	Dec 12, 11	June 2
Md.	10,000	(est.) 40,000	already on	already on	0	0	Aug. 4	Aug. 4
Mass.	(est) (reg) 43,000	#10,000	13,336	6,507	102	0	Nov. 5, 11	July 29
Mich.	32,261	30,000	already on	already on	already on	0	July 16	July 16
Minn.	146,297	#2,000	0	0	0	0	May 1	June 17
Miss.	be organized	1,000	already on	already on	already on	0	April 4	April 4
Mo.	10,000	10,000	already on	0	already on	0	July 28	July 28
Mont.	5,000	#11,823	already on	*300	0	0	March 13	*May 27
Nebr.	4,880	4,000	already on	0	0	0	Aug. 1	Aug. 25
Nev.	9,738	9,738	already on	*1,400	already on	0	April 11	Feb. 7
N. Hamp.	20,779	#3,000	0	0	0	0	Aug. 6	Aug. 6
N.J.	no procedure	#800	0	0	0	0	– – –	June 3
N. M.	3,009	18,053	already on	*disputed	*disputed	*0	in court	June 24
N.Y.	no procedure	#15,000	can’t start	already on	can’t start	can’t start	– – –	Aug. 19
No. Car.	89,366	89,366	already on	0	0	0	in court	June 12
No. Dak.	7,000	1,000	*already on	0	0	0	Apr. 11	Sep. 5
Ohio	show support	5,000	already on	already on	already on	0	unsettled	May 5
Okla.	66,744	pay fee	0	0	0	0	March 3	April 11
Oregon	17,700	18,279	already on	already on	already on	0	Aug. 26	Aug. 26
Penn.	no procedure	(est.) 25,000	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	– – –	Aug. 1
R.I.	17,115	#1,000	0	0	0	0	June 2	July 17
So. Car.	10,000	10,000	already on	already on	already on	already on	May 4	July 15
So. Dak.	7,928	3,171	already on	0	already on	already on	Mar. 25	*April 29
Tenn.	40,042	25	0	0	0	0	Aug. 6	April 3
Texas	49,729	49,729	already on	already on	can’t start	can’t start	May 20	April 27
Utah	2,000	#1,000	already on	0	already on	0	March 1	March 17
Vermont	be organized	#500	already on	*organizing	0	0	Jan. 1	*June 12
Virginia	no procedure	#10,000	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	– – –	June 10
Wash.	no procedure	#pay fee	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	can’t start	– – –	May 17
West Va.	no procedure	#6,516	already on	already on	0	0	– – –	Aug. 1
Wisc.	10,000	#2,000	can’t start	0	already on	can’t start	May 1	June 3
Wyo.	4,833	4,833	already on	0	already on	0	June 1	Aug. 25
TOTAL STATES ON			31*	18*	14*	4*	“	`

#partisan label permitted (other than "independent").
"AMER-ELE" = Americans Elect Party.
* means entry changed since the last time this chart appeared (in the July 1, 2013 issue).

On September 24, California held a special run-off election to fill the vacant 52^nd Assembly seat. The two candidates were Democrat Freddie Rodriguez, and independent Paul Leon. Leon polled 48.7% of the vote. If he had won, he would have been the first independent elected to a partisan California office since 1994, when Quentin Kopp was elected to the State Senate as an independent. The last minor party member elected to the California legislature was Green Party nominee Audie Bock in a special election in 1999.

Leon had been a registered Republican until the day he filed to run for the Assembly. He had run for the State Senate in a special election earlier this year as a Republican, and had not done as well as he did in the latest try.

Lynn Serpe, the Green Party nominee for New York city council, 22^nd district, has qualified for $50,000 in public funding. She needed to raise $5,000 in small private donations in order to qualify. She is in a race against a Democrat, a Republican, and an independent candidate. The district is centered in the Astoria portion of Queens Borough. The incumbent is not running for re-election.

The Working Families Party is ballot-qualified in Connecticut (for most federal and state office), Delaware, New York, Oregon, and South Carolina. It is thinking of expanding into Illinois and Pennsylvania. The Oregon Working Families Party now has a higher registration (on a percentage basis) than the Working Families Party of any other state. The Oregon percentage is .40%; New York is second at .38%. The Oregon party is doing a registration drive; because if it gets .50%, its place on the ballot is assured even if it does not pass the 1% vote test in future elections.

The New York city Mayoral election of November 5 will have fifteen candidates on the ballot: Bill De Blasio, Democrat-Working Families; Joe Lhota, Republican-Conservative-Students First; Adolfo Carrion, Independence; Anthony Gronowicz, Green; Michael Sanchez, Libertarian; Dan Fein, Socialist Workers; Carl Person, Reform; Randy Credico, Tax Wall Street; Michael Dilger, Flourish Every Person; Jimmy McMillan, Rent is 2 Damn High; Joe Melaragno, Affordable Tomorrow; Jack Hidary, Jobs & Education; Mike Greys, Freedom; Erick Salgado, School Choice; Sam Sloan, War Veterans. Independent candidates need 3,750 signatures. The Liberal Party (which has not been ballot-qualified since 2002) petitioned, but its nominee withdrew.

Virginia elects a Governor on November 5. Rob Sarvis, the Libertarian, and the only candidate on the ballot other than the two major party nominees, was at 10% in two polls published at the end of September. If he does receive 10%, the Libertarian Party will become a ballot-qualified party for 2014, 2015, and 2016. The party has never been a qualified party in Virginia. The last time a third party was qualified in Virginia was 1994-1997, when the Reform Party had that status. The Reform Party did not exist in 1994, but an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in 1994, Marshall Coleman, did poll 10%, and in 1995 the Board of Elections let Coleman specify that his votes should be used to qualify the Reform Party.

Your issue of B.A.N. may have come in an envelope that used old postage stamps. The Stamp Shop in Indianapolis supplies these old stamps for only 80% of face value. This enables the newsletter to be mailed at a cost savings. If you would also like to buy old mint U.S. stamps, the e-mail address for The Stamp Shop is stampshop@sbcglobal.net, or 317-631-0631.

---

SUBSCRIBING TO BAN WITH PAYPAL

If you use Paypal, you can subscribe to B.A.N., or renew, with Paypal. If you use a credit card in connection with Paypal, use richardwinger@yahoo.com. If you don’t use a credit card in conjunction with Paypal, use sub@richardwinger.com.

Ballot Access News is published by and copyright by Richard Winger. Note: subscriptions are available!