The Oregon Constitution Party has been fined $450 for holding nominating conventions without informing its rank-and-file registered members. The party is ballot-qualified. In Oregon, small qualified parties nominate by convention, not by primary. Thanks to Steve Kamp for this news.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
How were they suppose to inform?
If every person registered to vote under their banner is considered to be a member, I suppose they would have to get a list of all of their registered voters from the state, and mail them all notice about the upcoming convention.
Any OCP website / listings in phone books ???
State/local Convention notices on website ???
@Andy,
The basis for continued recognition in Oregon is the registered party members plus party electoral success. It can’t be a body with nobody.
The notice requirement in Oregon law AND under the Oregon Constitution Party constitution is notice in three newspapers 10 days before the convention.
Yes, Jim is right. The notice must be in 3 newspapers of general circulation, ten days before the meetings. The Constitution Party still has time to hold another meeting and run the general newspaper notice, if it wants.
3 smallest papers in OR —
seen/read by X pct of OCP members ???
Now Stone Age obsolete since internet in 1990 ???
@RW,
It appears that Oregon expects a party to hold a cascaded series of conventions. There might not be enough Cons in some counties to organize a convention.
In Australia, political parties keep track of their own membership. To qualify they send a spreadsheet with 1500-1650 members (it helps that Australian has mandatory registration) so that a party may match official records as far as names, address etc.
After matching records, the electoral officials contact a sample of members. Since you can only submit a small excess, it encourages parties to have clean membership rolls – rather than a scribbled signature in a shopping mall. It is likely that an actual member will have more involvement than a checkbox on a registration form.
If the US adopted such a system it might require 45 members per congressional district (not a distribution requirement but a way to scale to population). For California that would be 2340 members, for Wyoming 45 members.
Congress has manner authority over federal elections such that they can specify requirements for organizations making nominations. Federal elections could be on the first Saturday after the first Monday in November, with a runoff if necessary a week later (if France can do it, the USA can do it).
How many days to get the final-final CA primary results after the CA primary day ???
With an all write-in voter verifiable ballot why would any of this bureaucratic quick sand be necessary?
Voters vote. Voter tracks ballot to aggregation into final totals. Candidates campaign or they don’t. Parties “endorse”; they don’t “nominate” anyone’s name for printing on the state monopoly ballot.
There would be no “official” candidates. There be a candidate elected to an office and others who were not.
The concern with write in ballots is handwriting. The concern with print at home ballots is ballot stuffing. Fine. I have a better solution: the caucus voting system.
You show up in the evening after a hard day’s work on the farm or in the factory while your wife washes the dishes, mops the floors, does laundry, and puts the kids to bed, and spend a few hours standing in a corner of a big room in front of all your neighbors together with the supporters of your party while some of your party’s supporters make speeches to convince undecided and persuadable voters to come over to your corner. All voting is strictly by party; the party committee meets in a back room filled with thick cigar smoke to pick the candidates. To qualify a party you must get above a certain threshold of voters in above a certain threshold of precincts to stand in their corner on election day.
You may have to spend a few hours standing in a corner of a room together with your neighbors who support your party, but you won’t have to stand in line to vote. Can’t face your neighbors and let them know which party you support? Stay home, you do not deserve to vote.
It should go without saying that only White, property owning men who are members of a Christian church should be allowed to vote. There should be a literacy test, a poll tax, and the voting age should be raised to 30. There should also be a requirement that men have a wife and at least two children to be allowed to vote, and that their father’s father should have also been a registered voter in the same county. This would fix the vast majority of political problems in this country.
What ???
NOT having ONLY males from the Adam-Seth line in the Bible having the *right* to vote — or even exist ???
Which part do you have a hard time understanding?