On July 6, the Maine Senate passed LD 769, which eases the definition of a qualified party. The bill had passed the House last month. The old definition of a qualified party was a group that had 5,000 registrants if it was in its first four years of legal existence, but afterwards had to have 10,000 registrants.
The bill eases that to simply define a qualified party as a group with 5,000 registrants, whether it is new or old.
What if an author had to have 5,000 people signup to buy his/her book before he/she could published it? Nah, ballots aren’t censored, they are just regulated so people don’t make frivolous choices when they pretend to vote effectively.
I had an idea awhile ago that candidates who successfully make it through ballot access hurdles ought to have guaranteed access to debates with all of the ballot qualified candidates, and that any candidate who refuses to debate all of the other candidates should be removed from the ballot and disqualified from being a write in candidate.
@Andy,
Better would be to have qualification based on appearing at the debates.
Precinct based voting access, no ballots, one party rep available for public inquiries a few months leading to election, and physically present in election hall on election night. No multiprecinct elections. Oh well, it’s a nice fantasy, anyway.
NOT ALL CANDIDATES ARE SO HOT AT DEBATES
SEE A. LINCOLN AT HIS DEBATES WITH DOUGLAS.
DOUGLAS [OF THE INFAMOUS 1854 KS-NE ACT IN PRODUCING THE OLDE R PARTY] CHOSEN TO BE USA SENATOR. — VIA ORIG USA CONST – BY IL LEGIS HACKS.
DOUGLAS DEAD IN 1861 AFTER KILLING STARTED IN APR 1861
LINCOLN DEAD AFTER 750,000 DEAD AND AMONG THE LAST TO DIE IN 1865.
I’d rather see party speeches in an election hall than debates, but each party should be free to choose its presentation style.
At the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the first speaker had 60 minutes, the second 90 minutes, and the first speaker had 30 minutes. They were more like speeches than the so-called debates.
Yes. Unfortunately, the modern attention span barely can withstand the attack of that many seconds, to speak nothing of minutes.
Why the desire to eliminate candidates for any reason?
Winner take all politics.