Ralph Nader will speak in Oklahoma City about ballot access, on Wednesday evening, September 8. The talk is free and open to the public. It is at the Grand Ballroom at the Oklahoma City Marriott, 3233 NW Expressway.
Oklahoma ballot access for president is so bad, no Oklahoma voter has been permitted to vote for anyone for President in the last 9 years except for the nominees of the two major parties. Oklahoma is the only state in which no one has ever been allowed to vote for Nader. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this news.
Oklahoma ballot access laws relating to independent presidential candidates are supremely irrational, because independent candidates for office other than president are very easy in Oklahoma, and the state has no problem with crowded general election ballots for any partisan office. Independent candidates don’t need any signatures at all, unless they are running for President, in which case they need 43,880 valid signatures (for 2012).
Is even Nader (with his mini-army of MORON ballot access lawyers) able to detect that —
Separate is NOT equal.
Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954 ???
Demo Rep, Why would you call Nader’s ballot access lawyers morons? His people have learned a lot about the process over the years. I actually think 2008 stands out as a particularly inspirational example of what is possible at the national level when a campaign with modest resources sets upon the task of understanding the possible avenues for placing their candidate on as many ballots as possible, and chooses good stratagy. It was a fine campaign. Why knock them?
Richard,
Are there states where ballot access for presidential elections is determined on a case by case basis by smaller political units? Counties, or CDs. Ever been a candidate for president that was on the ballot in parts of a state?
The only state that provided for piecemeal qualification of a statewide candidate was Delaware, which once said a non-qualified party needed 250 signatures from each of the 3 counties in order to be on the ballot. The law was interpreted to mean that an unqualified party could submit 250 signatures in just one county, and then its statewide candidates would be on the ballot in just that one county. Some years, the Socialist Labor Party would only qualify in New Castle County and not the other two counties. That law was repealed in 1966.
Also in Tennessee in 1972, a handful of counties printed Linda Jenness (presidential candidate of the Socialist Workers Party) and E. Harold Munn (Prohibition Party) on their ballots as independents, but the vast majority of counties did not print them. At the time the Secretary of State believed that it was impossible to run for president as an independent. But in 1974 the US Supreme Court said states must let people run for any partisan office as independent candidates, so starting in 1976 Tennessee printed independent presidential candidates on the ballot statewide if they submitted a petition.
Uncle Ralph, Love [I kinda do] him, or hate him [like Perot, he can be a bull headed irritant] —— but he [and Perot] is /are hard to ignore!
The rank and file is biting at the bit via Obama, My Yokohoma Momma, and his tail diving numbers [Lake: ‘P2008, Told ya so, told ya so!’ ]
Here’s for Nightmare Nightingale: on NOT the California American Independent Party but, if at all, but as a non partisan ‘independent’ candidate —— as there is no ballot access for the (so called) California Constitution Party, a newly minted entity, and not yet ballot accessed.
#2 ALL the ballot access lawyers have been MORONS starting with Williams v. Rhodes 1968 —
NONE of such MORONS have brought up Brown 1954 in SCOTUS ballot access cases.
Thus the nonstop playing of games about how *severe* some sort of EVIL UNEQUAL ballot access requirement is — for the last 42 years. Totally EVIL N-U-T-S.
The party hack SCOTUS folks are unable to detect that the 14th Amdt was also passed to protect LOYAL UNION Republican white folks in the ex-slave States (along with the black ex-slaves) — due in part to such MORON ballot access lawyers.
Demo Rep has had his own pro se constitutional lawsuits on ballot access and they didn’t win.
# 7 As the expert R.W. surely knows the later courts over-ruled some of the stuff that Demo Rep was involved in.
D.R. did NOT have the big bucks budget that Nader spends on his MORON lawyers.
But of course — what happened in the EVIL past due to party hack judges is totally irrelevant.
Each of the New Age know- it- all MORON ballot access lawyers is apparently too stupid to bring up Brown v. Bd of Ed. — keeps B.A.N. very busy reporting on all of the New Age screwed up cases — that keep on losing for the same old EVIL reasons — i.e. a zillion third party and independent cases.
Lots of lawsuits failed in 1896-1954 before the racist UNEQUAL civil rights stuff was OVER-RULED in Brown v. Bd of Ed.