In the New York town of New Windsor, in Orange County, Republican voters who signed a primary petition for a particular Republican candidate got visits from private investigators. See this story. The investigators claimed they were from the Board of Elections, which was not true. Thanks to Joe Burns for the link.
Welcome to the future of politics. Tick tock, or should I say tik tok. Throw in covid, Hunter Biden, spy balloons, covaids, fentanyl…connect the dots? It may help if you squint.
The stolen 2020 election is another important dot which helps paint this picture, but to be fair what’s happening to ballot access in 2023 (see the following article by pressing the forward arrow link, Request to Commenter) is another dot. If you see the overall picture, even if you have to squint, you can see the future of ballot access trends.
TYRANTS MAKING THEIR PURGE LISTS – WITH /WITHOUT TROLL MORON COMMENTS.
SECRET PETITIONS AS WITH SECRET BALLOTS.
What, you call troll moron comments are often neither troll nor moron.
If filing fees were accepted in lieu of petition signatures for ballot access, there would be nobody’s signature to challenge.
Then they would just jack up the fees. Or say the check bounced or got lost in the mail. Or miscount the money. Or their card reader will be down. Or you came in two seconds too late. Or something.
There is always something. But, at least, there would be no intimidating voters who sign a petition.
No, they would just make the fee unaffordable. I think I read here recently some state charges like 80k just to get a copy of the voter list and the state even won a lawsuit about that.
That was Alabama, which charged about $35,000 for the list.
Florida has the worst candidate filing fees, 6% of the annual salary of the office, so the fee to run for Congress is a little over $10,000. I often fantasize about a ballot initiative in Florida that would cap filing fees at 1% of the annual salary of the office. If I were super-wealthy I would try to get such an initiative on the ballot. But Florida requires an initiative to pass with 60% of the vote.
I’m squinting and I think I’m starting to get the picture.
I thought we weren’t supposed to trash comments about other posters. Richard, why is AZ’s comment allowed?
I don’t understand AZ comment. Is it supposed to be a threat?
I disagree with AZ about secret ballots. I believe in an open, in the record public vote standing count in full view of fellow voters who are all longtime neighbors. God is in charge, but voters do have power. Power without accountability is bad. For the same reason you shouldn’t want representatives to cast secret ballots on legislation, you shouldn’t want voters to cast secret ballots on legislators or legislation either.
I propose a republican system of government wherein there would be no legislation, legislators, written or printed ballots, or any petitions. But so long as any of these do still exist, the same principle applies. Nothing involving the choices which direct government force should be done in secret, other than national defense and perhaps some matters internal to the daily operations of peace officers.
Signers of a petition should swear an oath on the Holy Bible in front of two police officers on live video available publicly and uploaded to the cloud. If we were to keep having petitions, that is.
BAAADE OLDE DAYS –
BRIBES AND THREATS BEFORE SECRET BALLOTS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot
EVEN IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME –
BOTH HAD OTHER FATAL DEFECTS.
Do you also want legislators to vote in secret? Why or why not? I’ve seen you say that you want voters to vote on legislation directly. If you agree that legislators should vote openly, why should voters not when they vote on legislation? How about when they vote on legislators? If there is a categorical difference, what is it?
Old doesn’t mean bad. Many newfangled things are not nearly as good as those which are tried and true. I’m a reactionary, traditionalist, or whatever you want to call me, but I’ve studied history and current affairs my whole life, and read and traveled widely. It’s a rather inescapable conclusion. So called progress all too often begs the question of where exactly it’s progressing and why.
How many signatures were required?
Orange County has 124,000 votes in the gubernatorial election. Orange County has 21 supervisor districts. So, around 6,000 votes for governor. Only Republicans can sign a designation petition for a Republican candidates. The candidate does not have to be a Republican. It is not unknown for candidates in local elections to get the nomination on half a dozen lines. The fundamental problem is having partisan nominations particularly for a local election like this.
Far too many, although even one would be too many. For starters, no voting precinct should have anywhere near that many voters. If all the voter exclusion criteria I propose were applied, the orange county might have a small enough number of voters who are all long term, multi-generation property owners in the county, and all know each other well. Where there are 124,000 voters today there may ought to be a couple of hundred, and they would all be one precinct – that is, one physical hall where these men, or perhaps Knights,would gather one evening a year for the election of the party which would appoint the peace officers among them for the next year.
While literacy should be a requirement to vote, it should not be a part of the voting process itself. A knight could be a precinct chair of a party, and would lead the charge of his knights party in the voting hall on election knight. The knights would stand and be counted. Reading and writing would only be needed to report the count. But among the gathered knights it could be called out verbally.
Is there any point in this process where a written signature or qualification of a party by more than one man should be required? I’ve not thought of any, but I’m open to discuss what I have not yet taken into consideration.
Surprised AZ is complaining about this. He voted for Biden and this is type of thing his party does.
AZ voted? In the year of covaids? I guess if he did vote it would make sense to vote for a cellar dweller.