On August 6, John Schmitz, an independent candidate for Mayor of Indianapolis, sued to obtain a place on the ballot. Schmitz v Marion County Board of Elections, s.d., 1:19cv-3314. He needed 6,106 valid signatures. He submitted 8,295. The Board rejected his petition. He would have had enough valid signatures, except that election officials disallowed the signatures of people who are clearly registered voters in Indianapolis, but who listed a different address on the petition than on their voter registration form. UPDATE: see this news story.
Here is the Complaint, which cites several federal laws about voting, including the 1965 Voting Rights Act which has often been interpreted to mean that if an elections administrator knows that a particular signer is a registered voter within the relevant jurisdiction, the signature counts even if the address on the petition doesn’t match the address on the voter registration form. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt, an Obama appointee.
How many tax/utility/other bills magically get to the persons involved ???
Voter REAL addresses — NOW a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY —
regardless of local HACK MORONS.
If Indiana adopted Top 2 or non-partisan elections and required a reasonable demonstration of support (say 0.1% of gubernatorial vote) then a mayoral candidate in Indianapolis would need around 360 supporters.
Have them show up at city hall or the courthouse and count them, and there won’t be the issue of illegible signatures or mixed up addresses. Voters could even register at the gathering.
While no state would benefit from the restrictive top-2 system, Indiana would suffer more than most. Or maybe the same, but since I live here, it’d feel worse. One, most local elections here are uncontested, with Republicans running supreme in all the rural areas. Top-2 would, at best, give me two Republican choices, I might as well never vote again. I got to write-in a Green Party candidate for Secretary of State in 2018, would I be able to under top two? While I’m not a Libertarian, they’re the only third-party who commonly get on the ballot here, but under top-2, I’d never get a chance to vote for them, or if I do it’d be because they beat out a Democrat.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Top Two is repulsive in how restrictive it is. Elections are about choice, and the more options you have, the better. I wouldn’t even call an election under Top-Two democracy. One can fix the awful Indiana ballot access laws without destroying the right of people to vote for who they want in a general. I see no reason to bring up that hateful form of ‘elections’ when ballot access laws can be solved without resorting to it.
Elections are about choosing officers.
Top 2 permits all candidates to qualify for a single ballot in a first (primary) election which all voters may participate.
The two candidates with the most support advance to a second election in which a final choice is made.
A system of segregated partisan primaries is much more restrictive of choice. You have been conditioned to believe you were making a choice, when that decision had already been made.
NO extremist primaries – now super-dangerous — lots of Stalin/Hitler clones.
See Star Wars movie – Attack of the Clones.
PR and AppV and TOTSOP
Jim, elections have many functions, far beyond choosing officers. National elections provide the primary “public forum” in all nations that hold them, especially if they are free elections with free speech guarantees in place. Election campaigns are how a nation’s people speak with each other about public policy. Your preferred top-two system interferes with that function. It shuts down voices.
What is wrong with Jim Riley? Why can’t he see that the Soviet style Top One system is FAR more efficient that his confusing Top Two. Geez…
CL –
How about the olde top ZERO election regimes ??? —
hereditary monarchs/oligarchs – *nobles* rule.
See rotted UK – with the still appointed *House of Lords*
— aka appointed olde HACKS – many retired from House of Commons.
—
elections = making choices.
@RW,
A system that employs segregated partisan primaries comparmentalizes political discourse, and effectively sidelines citizens that do not identify with either major party, rendering them spectators to a political circus.
Jim, here in California, where we have top-two, citizens are sidelined and are mere spectators. The legislature here is one of the most polarized in the nation, according to detailed political science research. Time after time, for election law bills, all Democrats vote one way and all Republicans vote the other way. Hearings are not meaningful because the legislators have made up their minds in advance of the hearing. Legislators don’t even listen, and are often not present in the room. They come in later in the hearing and vote without having heard any testimony. I have seen legislative committees in other states and invariably the hearings in the other states are better. Legislators listen to witnesses and have dialogue with them. That is certainly has been true in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, and West Virginia, all states where I have testified in legislative committees.
@RW,
I know you know the distiction between causation and correlation.