Politico has this story on how the Florida Secretary of State changed the ballot access rules on September 7, blocking several ballot-qualified parties from being on the presidential ballot.
Politico has this story on how the Florida Secretary of State changed the ballot access rules on September 7, blocking several ballot-qualified parties from being on the presidential ballot.
The bylaws of the Independent Party of Florida do not provide for appointment of Presidential Electors.
Why is party chairman Bach never quoted in these articles?
One more ARBITRARY TYRANT machination or what by the robot party HACK FL SOS ???
The decision to change Florida’s ballot access rules pertaining to minor-party presidential candidates was made several weeks before September 7th.
When the newly-formed American Solidarity Party, which submitted its party bylaws and charter to the Florida Division of Elections on August 12 in hopes of gaining recognition as a qualified minor party in time to place its presidential ticket on the November ballot, they were told by an assistant general counsel shortly thereafter that there was no rush in the review process since the party wasn’t a recognized national committee by the Federal Election Commission and wouldn’t be able to qualify its presidential candidate in 2016. That conversation occurred the week of August 22nd.
In other words, a new party had absolutely no way to qualify for the ballot in Florida this year since it would have been absolutely impossible for a new political party, embarking on its initial presidential campaign, to ever be recognized as a “national committee” by the FEC.
It was clear, moreover, that Florida’s current general counsel — a Rick Scott appointee — wasn’t going to allow any minor-party not already recognized by the Florida Division of Election to qualify, or re-qualify, as was the case with the Socialist Party, in time to place its presidential ticket on the ballot in the Sunshine State.
The Socialist Party, incidentally, submitted substantially the same bylaws and party constitution that had been approved by the DOE only four years earlier, enabling the party to place its presidential nominee, Stewart Alexander, on the ballot in 2012.
Unlike two of the previously-qualified party’s being excluded from the ballot this year, the Socialist Party is a recognized national committee by the FEC.
This is a travesty. The Socialist Party’s Matt Erard, in responding to the ridiculous review of the party’s bylaws and constitution by the very same assistant general counsel who rejected the American Solidarity Party’s two submissions, put it best.
“When the conditions for access to the political process are disparately and shiftingly left to the imagination of a single bureaucrat, rather than to objectively determined rules,” wrote Erard on September 12th, “Florida’s political process is rendered to resemble that of the Republic of Iran. That is to say, a system of partisan competition and popular elections, but limited to only those parties which have satisfied a single power-holder’s self-chosen criteria.”
“Unlike two of the previously-qualified party’s…”
Should read, “Unlike two of the previously-qualified parties…”
16 years on, they still haven’t forgiven Nader and Buchanan.