This BBC story says Moscow, Russia, is barring 30 candidates from the ballot because they allegedly didn’t submit valid petitions. In response, a very large demonstration was held, and organizers of the protest say these demonstrations will continue if the candidates are not put on the ballot. Thanks to Nathan Hetzel for the link.
Another chance for the 666 regime to test facial recognition — for a later PURGE ???
GULAG!!! Send them to the GULAG!!! Bring back the Romanovs!!!
I’m not too worried about Moscow–we have enough ballot access problems here in the good ol’ USA.
Before the elections departments started printing all election ballots, each political party used to print it’s own ballots, and give them to the voters to bring to the polls. In this age of technology, why not let every voter download his or her own ballot with the recognized candidates, digitally premark each choice, clearly pre-printing in any “write-in” candidates, and bringing the completed ballots to the polling places, and quickly depositing them into the vote counting character readers?
In 1903, Texas adopted a hybrid form of Australian ballot. A party would print ballots with the names of its nominees. The ballots had to conform to technical standards of uniformity, and include a write-in space for esch office.
At the time, if you did not want to vote for a candidate you crossed out their name, and could write-in an alternative candidate.
Election officials would hand out all party ballots. A voter would pick one ballot, and edit as they chose. So you had the advantages of party-printed ballots, but also curbed ballot stuffing, vote buying, and protected ballot secrecy.
In 1905, Texas switched to a ballot printed by election authorities – the former individual party ballots were presented in columns. A voter would reject another party by drawing a vertical line down their column. If they wanted to cross-over for one office, they would leave a gap in the vertical line, and be sure to cross off the other candidates for the office.
But this new system required authorities to determine which parties and candidates to print ballots for.
So what if the election authorities simply had candidates pay for printing their name on the ballot. Determine the overall printing cost and charge candidates their proportional share. Statewide candidates would pay more since they are on more ballots.