COFOE, the Coalition for Free & Open Elections, is now 40 years old. COFOE is a loose coalition of some of the nation’s nationally-organized minor parties, plus other organizations that support tolerant ballot access. The founding meeting to bring such an organization into existence was held February 9, 1985, at 113 University Place, New York. Representatives of the Citizens, Communist, Humanist, Libertarian, New Alliance, Populist, and Socialist Party attended, along with Art Eisenberg of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The March 16 meeting, also held in New York, created the Statement of Principles.
The May 11 meeting, also held in New York, chose the name “Coalition for Free & Open Elections.”
Back then, before the internet and e-mail, and before cheap long distance phone rates, it was felt necessary for the group to meet monthly in person, and the various representatives were all individuals who lived in or near New York city.
COFOE still exists, and was the group that financed the lawsuit filed late last year to overturn the California top-two system. COFOE gets all its revenue from kind subscribers to Ballot Access News who send donations. COFOE thanks all of its donors.
HOW MANY MENTIONS OF 1954 BROWN V BD OF ED IN COFOE MEETINGS / COURT CASES / BRIEFS ????
Why didn’t Justice Thurgood Marshall mention it in any ballot access decisions?
JR-
perhaps TM was senile when he got appointed to SCOTUS —
or one more standard hack regarding the *rights* of minor parties and indees — esp since the 2 party primary system in 1888-1890 ???
— with major fears about a 1860 deja vu repeat – with big splits in the top 2 gangs ???
IRV/ RCV / APPV / CONDORCET — ONLY KNOWN ABOUT A BIT SINCE 1980 ???
Jim Riley: because the AZ spambot is fixated on a dead crank’s oddball theory which has nothing to do with the real world or what anyone else thinks. One weirdo misread/misapplied a snippet of language, passed away, and now a spambot will scream this nonsense googleplex plus times until the heat death or collapse of the universe.
Long after English becomes a dead language, our Earth and Sun are no more, humanity has died out or evolved into something we can’t even imagine, and no being remains with any clue of what the squiggles in this alphabet are supposed to be, the AZ spambot will continue to execute these same programmed subroutines regardless of what anyone says in response, including in the preferred case where nobody would say anything in response.