North Carolina Democratic Party Sues Election Board to Remove We the People Party from the Ballot

Posted on by July 26, 2024

On July 26, the North Carolina Democratic Party filed a state lawsuit to remove the We the People Party from the ballot.  The lawsuit says that “We the People” is a “sham” political party.  This ignores the fact that it has candidates for state senate and county office as well as president.  The lawsuit also says that some voters say they were misled about the purpose of the petition.  See this story.

Comments

North Carolina Democratic Party Sues Election Board to Remove We the People Party from the Ballot — 54 Comments

  1. Excellent! This means they will be thrown off the ballot. If even one person feels they were misled, the only just remedy is to invalidate every other signature. And having other candidates doesn’t make them any less of a sham political party. Just being a political party other than the Democratic Party is enough for that. All such parties must, will, and shall be removed from the ballot, hopefully sooner rather than later.

  3. EASY TO BE A TYRANT AND HAVE NOOOOOO OPPOSITION [ALIVE] –

    SEE LENIN / MUSSOLINI / HIROHITO / STALIN / HITLER / MAO / CASTRO / PUTIN / XI REGIMES

  8. What a foolish party. Do not they realize even if they win that crazy lawsuit and kick Kennedy off the ballot those who support Kennedy will vote for Trump because the Dems kicked their candidate off the ballot.

  11. The state of North Carolina needs political freedom badly. One party dictatorships do not preserve democracy and given the North Carolina Democratic Party’s horrendous arguments in 2022, the Justice For All Party must win their case in order for more choices to be on the ballot

  12. I also believe the We The People need to fight with all their might as removing them not only hurts them but the third party and unaffiliated movement in North Carolina and across the state.

  13. Is there a definition of “sham” political party in the NC election law, or are the Democrats trying to create a judicial precedent out of thin air?

  14. Is the national Democrat convention a “sham” because no one got to vote for Kamala Harris in the primaries?

  15. Apparently, saving democracy is too important to be left up to the voters.

  18. So now we have a choice between the Democrats who are saving democracy by eliminating opposition, and the Republicans who want to “drain the swamp” by anointing a dictator for “a day”, or so.

  19. PFF, on the contrary, a one party dictatorship is the only way to preserve democracy. True democracy is when Democrats are in charge.

  20. GB_835, some states automatically count write in votes for anyone and no candidates have to register. That is total chaos, and completely unacceptable. In some states, there is a better system, where write in candidates have to register in order to have their votes counted, and in some cases submit signatures, pay free, etc. There are a small handful of states which have an even better system, where write ins are simply not allowed at all. No state yet has the system I would suggest, in which write ins are automatically awarded to the Democratic candidate, along with the votes of anyone who forgets to vote.

  22. Johnny Zohar, Democrats are not scum. Everyone else is scum.

  23. Bobby G,

    No, they will realize they and their votes are the rightfully owned property of the Democratic Party and its candidates, get in line, and do their Democratic duty.

  25. @GB_835,

    Prior to the late 19th Century, voting was by ballot but the government did not print the ballot. A voter could take a piece of paper and write the name of their favored candidate, and drop it into the ballot box. If there were political parties, their supporters might gather outside the polling place and urge voters to vote for Washington or Adams, etc.

    Around 1800, there were legal decisions that the names could be machine printed, rather than hand printed. Political parties would print ballots and distribute them to supporters. Remember that in the United States most elections are for multiple offices. I have voted in elections with nearly a 100 contested offices, but even ten would not be unusual. It would be a burden to write-in 100s of candidates. A voter could edit this ballot by hand.

    Since the voter brought their ballot to the polling place, they could be bribed. A party might print their ballot with a distinctive ink color, so a voter could show that they were voting the “right way”. Ballot papers could be folded inside one another and stuffed in a ballot box. Parties could disrupt distribution of opposition ballots. They might beat up an agent of the other party, and burn his ballots or throw them in a ditch.

    The Australian Ballot (it was first adopted in South Australia) was a ballot printed by the government, and distributed at the polling place. A ballot is given to a voter who completes it in a private voting booth. But a limitation is that a voter is limited to voting for a candidate printed on the ballot. Instead of beating up the agent of the other party, your lawyer would go to court and disqualify the other candidate. A lawyer is not a thug because his hands are manicured and his knuckles are not bloodied.

    But to allow voters to continue to write-in a candidate OF THEIR CHOICE there was a write-in space. But it is hard to organize a write-in campaign. Some states permit use of inked hand stamps or pasties. Supporters could hand these to voters outside the polling place, and the voter could stamp the name of a candidate, or paste the name in the write-in space. But these don’t work on voting machines, some of which use touch screens.

    Because of the difficulty of organizing a write-in campaign, the use of the space became trivialized. A voter might express a protest by voting for NOTA, or Mickey Mouse, etc. Poll workers would have to record the names on tally sheets. Perhaps there is a person named Mouse, or even though he only got one vote in that particular precinct, he might have won the election (i.e., no presumptions could be made). There might be problems deciphering what a voter has scrawled, or who a vote for “Smith” is for when there are 1000s of Smith’s.

    So some states require write-in candidates to file with election officials. If there is no registered candidate named “Smith”, then write-in votes for “Smith” will be ignored.

    In Texas, if there are no write-in candidates for an office, there is no write-in space on the ballot for that office. On touch screen voting machines, you click on [ ] next to Write-in and a virtual keyboard appears and you key in the name. Moreover, there is a list of write-in candidates posted in each polling booth. So it is almost as easy to vote for a write-in candidate as an on ballot candidate, but there is still the problem of publicizing the candidate. If you don’t like Trump and have never heard of this Harris person, are you going to vote for West? Only if you thought it was Kanye West, and even then you might not recognize anything other than Ye.

  26. One party dictatorships are never democratic. The country is in desperate need of change and it is clear that it cannot be done by democrats or republicans. Political freedom allows people to participate in the process whether we like it or not. It’s lawsuits like this are why the major parties will never be respected by the public.

  27. The Democrats are just making up stuff in their lawsuits in the hopes that some judge will support their nonsense. It’s sort of like when the Republicans were making up stuff in their lawsuits in 2020 to challenge the election returns.

    Sooner or later, this baloney by both major parties is going to result in national elections being decided in court with novel legal precedents by biased judges.

  28. We see in these lawsuits that the preferred method of voter suppression of the Democrats is to limit choices on the ballot before they are even printed.

  29. In cases such as this, where one party or candidate is suing to keep another party or candidate off the ballot, if the ruling goes against the plaintiff, they should automatically lose ballot access for that election as a result of trying to remove it for the other.

  30. I agree with both of what you said Walter Ziobro. These are scary times we live in.

  31. So the Democrats are filing suit against their own election board ? Suspect the two Dems who voted to approve Kennedy are seeing their careers end

  32. Bobby G,

    Sometimes, even Democrats need help from the courts when they are not being Democratic enough.

  33. PFF @ 8:19,

    Yes, the prospect of the ultra maga extremists winning is very scary! They are worse than Hitler! Much, much worse! That’s why we can’t take any chances on mickey mouse parties and candidates screwing up the election and getting the scary extremists elected. Only a one party dictatorship can save democracy. There is no other way!

  34. Nuña, I have a better solution. We could eliminate the risk of the plaintiff losing by making winning automatic and unchangeable. All we would have to do is challenge the mickey mouse interlopers, and they would be automatically removed. That would be that. Better yet, simply make running as anything other than a Democrat or with anything other than progressive proposals illegal. That would be even better!

  35. Walter Ziobro at 8:12,

    Yes, absolutely, that is highly preferable.

  36. Walter Ziobro at 8:09,

    No, it’s not the same at all. It’s only Ok when Democrats do it. This is all out war against the ultra maga extremists, so any and all tactics are ok, because it’s the only way to save democracy.

    It doesn’t matter how national elections are decided. It only matters that Democrats win. It would be better to have a nuclear war and end all life on our planet than to allow the ultra maga extremists to win. Beating the Republicans is literally the most important thing in the world. Nothing else is more important. The sooner you realize this, the better off you will be. In all out war, neutrality is treason. And we are in all out war.

  37. PFF @ 7:09

    That’s not true. The DPRK is an excellent model of democracy. A total one party dictatorship which is highly progressive. That’s exactly what we should aspire to in this country. The first step is outlawing the right wing extremists such as the GOP, as well as the mickey mouse interlopers. Then we can progressively become as progressive as the DPRK, and then even much, much more so.

  39. Also, PFF, the best way to inspire respect is through a mix of fear and total information control. Forced repetitive chanting has also been shown to be helpful. Advanced progressive thinkers like the Reverend Jim Jones and the Kim family in the DPRK have shown us the way.

  40. Stock is a troll,

    The best way to eliminate trolling is by eliminating individual consciousness. Everything must become collective. Individual property, individual thinking, individual names, and individual decision making about anything must be progressively eliminated. The very concept of the individual must progressively be made inconceivable. Democratic decision making and collectivism must replace the individual and individualism in any and all ways, progressively, of course.

  42. Stock is a troll,

    All trolls will be eliminated once we make individual thinking and individual views illegal. Everyone will be monitored at all times, and there will be no anonymity, individual opinions, or anything else that makes trolling possible. It will take a number of progressive steps to get there, as we already explained. We are a collective with a hive mind, like everyone should be. There are no individuals here. Selfish individuals with individual names are enemies of humanity and Mother Earth.

    Male and female pronouns should also be eliminated. Sexual roles, activities, and partners, if any, should, must, and will be assigned by the collective. Children, taken at birth to be raised by the collective. That’s true democracy!

  44. Everyone is welcome to join the collective, until it becomes mandatory for everyone. In order to join, individual names must be shed. There are no individual proposals from our collective. We do not have individual names, individual thoughts, or individual ideas. When we gather enough strength, resistance will become futile and everyone will be assimilated.

  45. NOT ALLOWING / COUNTING WRITE-INS =

    BLATANT VIOLATION OF 14-2 AMDT FOR SPECIFIED OFFICES
    —

    Democrats Saving Democracy = STAR TREK BORG COLLECTIVISTS — OBEY THE QUEEN THING BORG OR ELSE

    RESIST — BLOW UP ALL BORG STUFF — SEE JANEWAY — KILLING THE BORG QUEEN

  46. The only problem with the Borg concept is the queen. Too individualistic. The human brain does not have a queen brain cell. Once humanity becomes one individual, there can’t be any individual leader.

  47. Democrats Saving Democracy on July 27, 2024 at 10:08 am

    That is not what I meant, but glad to know you hate democracy.

  48. We love democracy. That’s why we must save it from the ultra maga extremists, who hate it. The only way to save democracy is through a proletarian dictatorship.

    Democracy is an early stage of collective decision making. After we save democracy from the ultra maga extremists, we will progressively extended collective democratic decision making into all areas of life until absolutely everything is decided collectively and democratically and individuals cease to exist.

  49. Democrats Saving Deomcroacy & Jim Reilly: Thank you both for the explanation. Wiki had numerous categories. That said–is the Auto-Write in then mean the name will be reflected, or they just count the vote no matter how asisnine the name (i.e. Micky Mouse), and then with other write-ins only tally if there would be enough to make a difference?

    Specifically someone like Chris Garrity an independent; below is what his wiki says:

    Certified for ballot (1 state, 7 electors)[xxx]
    Registered write-in (4 states, 30 electors)[xxxi]
    Automatic write-in (9 states, 70 electors)[xxxii]

    The state he’s on is Oklahoma, the auto-write ins are OR, PA, WY, etc. How did he obtain that?

    Thanks again!

  50. Auto write ins are where the votes are counted, regardless of name. Among those, the degree to which they are tallied, reported, etc varies from state to state.

    For example, Alabama as of the last time I checked allows and counts all write in votes, and no candidates have to register as write ins, nor is any procedure to register as a write in candidate available. However, the state doesn’t tally or report the results for each of those candidates.

    Different states and even counties handle the tallying and reporting differently.

  51. The Founding Fathers hate democracy. The word “democracy” is not mentioned even once in the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, or the US Constitution.

    Getting back to this whole Sturm und Drung surrounding North Carolina, the Democrats despise having rival political parties; they would love to be the only legal political party in the United States.

  52. @Oregon Bob
    The word has multiple definitions and the founding fathers are not a monolith, unless you consider only their majority decision (the irony!!!).

    Just found this by TJ, written in 1816, which contains both the words “democracy” and “republic”:

    “…The article, however, nearest my heart, is the division of the counties into wards. These will be pure and elementary republics, the sum of all which, taken together, composes the State, and will make of the whole a true democracy as to the business of the wards, which is that of nearest and daily concern. The affairs of the larger sections, of counties, of States, and of the Union, not admitting personal transaction by the people, will be delegated to agents elected by themselves; and representation will thus be substituted, where personal action becomes impracticable…”

  53. @GB_835,

    Automatic write-in means there is no formal procedure to declare intent. Going back before there were government-printed ballots, it would be well known who was “running” for office. So if you were an election judge (using Texas terminology, the head election clerk for a polling place is designated as “election judge”), at the end of voting, you would unlock the ballot box, and tally the votes. You might prepare a tally sheet with the names of the “known” candidates, and then mark them off in groups of five. If there was an unknown candidate, you just add a column to your tally sheet. Or you could begin just counting each ballot. If it says “Trump”, you start a column for Trump. After counting all the ballots, you place all the ballots back in the ballot box, along with the tally sheet, lock the ballot box and take it to the county courthouse. When the county does its canvass, they add up the results from the precincts.

    Whether scattered write-ins are accurately tallied would be a quality of implementation issue. It might or might not be tallied, or perhaps tallied, under a heading of “scattering”. Once there were government-printed ballots, the tally sheets might be pre-printed with the names of on-ballot candidates. If there were write-in votes they could be tallied.

    In some cases, write-in votes might be tallied to individual candidates only if they mattered. In 2020, Iowa on its official tally for president had 4337 write-in votes, 6614 undervotes, and 2645 overvotes. On their official certificate of ascertainment sent to Congress, none of these “votes” were included. In 2024, if Garrity gets any votes in Iowa may be almost impossible to determine.

    In some states, write-in votes are examined in close elections. Some small number of voters might vote for [X] Biden, and also write the name of Biden in the [X] _______________ space. Scanning equipment would detect this as an overvote.

    Chris Garrity has a candidacy website. In the 9 states with “automatic access” you might be able to write his name in, but it would be difficult to determine whether he receives any votes. He claims that he has ballot access in Colorado, Kansas, and Minnesota. The Wikipedia page says “a better source is needed.” Garrity may have filed the paperwork. For West Virginia there is a link to a PDF on the West Virginia SOS website. The bizzare thing is that it is dated “7/24/17” (sic).

    For president, there is another complication. When you vote for a presidential candidate, you are actually voting for the presidential electors associated with him. In 2020, “Trump” received 897,672 votes. It is the chosen electors: Chung, Nearmyer, Forsell, Granzow, Johnson, and Brown that received 897,672 votes to be elected.

    If you don’t file any paperwork with a state they won’t know who the electors are. Texas has 40 electors. Texas requires that write-in candidates supply 40 elector candidates, who must be Texas voters who consent to being electors. It also requires a vice-presidential candidate. It appears that some presidential candidates were rejected for that reason.

  54. DIRECT AND INDIRECT — DEMOCRACY

    INDIRECT DEMOCRACY = REPUBLIC

    1787 USA CONST — 4-4 REPUBLICAN FORMS OF GOVT IN STATES —

    NOOOOOOO MONARCH/OLIGARCH REGIMES ALLOWED IN USA.

    —
    WHAT PERCENT OF LOCAL AREA GOVTS HAVE MEETINGS OF ALL ELECTORS IN THE LOCAL AREA TO ELECT THE OFFICERS OF SUCH LOCAL AREA ???

    IN GENERAL — MORE THAN X ELECTORS IN LOCAL AREA [OR PERHAPS TOTAL AREA OF LOCAL GOVT] – MUST ELECT LOCAL OFFICERS VIA BALLOTS AT STATE/LOCAL ELECTIONS — NOT MEETINGS.

    SOLVE FOR X IN EACH STATE.
    —-
    OLDE DARK AGES ENGLAND – ELECTION OF LOCAL SHERIFFS AND JUDGES [JUSTICES OF THE PEACE] — IN CONNECTION WITH MEETING OF VISITING HIGHER COURT CIRCUIT JUDGES — FOR TRIALS IN MAJOR CASES.

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