Some states have irrational election laws, which require more signatures to get an independent candidate on the ballot for statewide office, than are needed for an entire new party. These laws are irrational because the purpose of ballot access barriers is to prevent ballots from being too crowded, yet a new party can have a much greater effect on ballot size than a single independent candidate.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., like other independent presidential candidates before him, will create a one-state party in most of these states. His party will nominate him in those states as a presidential nominee, and thus he can take advantage of the easier party formation laws than the tougher independent candidate requirements.
In Texas he will create the Texas Independent Party. In California, Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi, and North Carolina, he will create the We the People Party. See this story.
Past independent presidential candidates have also relied on one-state parties. George Wallace in 1968 was the nominee of the Kansas Conservative Party. John B. Anderson in 1980 relied on the Independent Party of North Carolina and the Liberal Party of New York. Ross Perot in 1992 created the Independent Initiative Party of Oregon, and the No-Party Party in Alaska. Ralph Nader in 2008 relied on the Peace & Freedom Party of California and others. Evan McMullin in 2016 tried to rely on the Independent Party of Florida, but the Secretary of State invoked a dormant 2011 law to block that.
This is why most people despise politicians and parties.
UNEQUAL BALLOT ACCESS LAWS = SUBVERSION OF 14-1 EP CL
MORON SCOTUS SINCE 1968 WILLIAMS V RHODES
IN PREZ CASE — ONE MORE REASON TO ABOLISH THE TIME-BOMB EC
1860 EC TIME-BOMB WENT OFF = 750,000 DEAD IN 1861-1866
I have never understood why its wrong to have a crowded ballot? The I realize I live in a country of Forrest Gumps. Duhhhhh. God forbid if a voter has to think when they vote.
Look at Biden.
As long as the Retard Party gets on the ballot.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/utility-crisis-hits-half-russia-154100543.html
EXCUSE FOR NOOO MORE ELECTIONS IN RUSSIA ???
Nader also took a similar track of creating one-purpose parties, some of which eked out an existence for a few years afterwards. For instance, in Florida, the Ecology Party – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology_Party_of_Florida
So basically the same thing no labels does – create a party just for the purpose of presidential ballot access only and nothing else?
John Schmitz also had the Kansas Conservative Party in 1972.
Q, yes.
Parties should not be permitted to have state-recognition of their endorsements.
If some folks wanted to petition to place Kennedy, Trump, Biden, etc. on the ballot they could.
On the contrary, voting should be just by party. The winning party could then appoint officeholders.
The more of each (parties and candidates), the better.
Maybe, maybe not. Voters have to sort through them somehow, and some have more time, interest level, and background for assessing them properly than others.
Candidates and parties have to rise above competing candidates and parties, media spin, deceiving ads, etc. It takes a lot of money to compete effectively, so appealing to plutocrats, organized groups, and/or very large numbers of small donors has to be navigated.
Meanwhile, we have all the ways the system is constantly manipulated – distortion of history, ideas, and current events by the entrenched education system and news/media/entertainment bureaucracies; entrenched, unelected bureaucrats and their mountains of regulations and regulatory agencies on top of the mountains of federal, state and local laws; organised lobbying and pressure groups, etc, etc, etc.
That’s entirely way too much for the average person to navigate. They have lots of other things to pay attention to besides politics – work, family, health, any number of more fun and interesting hobbies and diversions than politicians, what they do once elected, and those seeking to replace them.
So, having more of those may or may not be good. It certainly doesn’t guarantee better outcomes.
@MaxZ,
What is the geographic and temporal scope of the winning party?
Does the winning party rule the Earth for the next 10, 20, 40 years?
I think you are well aware that I want the geographic scale to be much more local, ultimately single precinct. Temporally, if you’ve forgotten, I’ve suggested elections once per year.
@MaxZ,
Why would the leaders of China, Russia, USA or Luxembourg consent to more local geographic scale?
What would be the initial geographic scope for the USA or Russia be in 2024. Would the winning party appoint the President, Congress, Governors, Legislatures, Mayors, City Councils?
How long has your scheme been practical (e.g., broadcast video from 1000s of locations)?
The leaders of the USSR didn’t agree to more local government scale. Neither did the various empires throughout history which broke up. Nevertheless, it happens, many times. Your country was also a colony of a foreign power at one time. It separated, without permission.
At current scale, winning parties would appoint officeholders at each level for which officeholders are appointed.
My scheme was practical before video. The people in the room can see if they are counted off correctly. The video simply records it in case the count should ever be questioned. So long as we still have multiprecinct elections, the tallying problems above the precinct level are no different under my plan than currently.
You left off the ALL CAPS PARTY in Detroit. RFK, Jr. (see, his name is all in capitals) should be able to handily defeat the nutcAZe-in-chief there.
@MaxZ,
“at current scale, winning parties would appoint officeholders at each level for which officeholders are appointed.”
That is a circular definition.
In November 2024, Texas voters at around 8,000 precincts will elected a US Senator, 38 US Representatives, some state wide officers, 150 State Representative, 15 State Senators, many district judges, and numerous county officials in each of 254 counties.
Would the standing counts from the 8,000 precincts be aggregated and then the winning “party” whatever that means appoint 1000s of officeholders.
What about the system used for the Iowa Republican Caucus this year?
The results would be aggregated only to the level of an officeholder. Thus, only statewide offices would be appointed by the winning party of the state. District offices would be appointed by the winning party of that district. County offices would be appointed by the winning party of that county. City offices, by the winning party of that city, etc.
This isn’t my favorite solution, since as you know my ultimate goal is single precinct elections where no aggregation at all takes place. However, it’s my least bad solution for transition.
As far as Iowa, while overall the Republicans are much less bad than the Democrats when it comes to US political parties, especially lately, I like the Iowa Democrats caucus procedure, where voters join the different candidate groups and at the end of the caucusing the groups are tallied.
Max plan for counting votes and appointing officeholders makes the most sense to me.
@MaxZ,
I live in a SBOE district, a Court of Appeals district, a Congressional District, a State Senate district, a State Representative district, a commissioners precinct, a constable district, and dozens of district court districts. Only the district court districts are coincident.
So under your scheme I would go to my election precinct on some Saturday and stand with voters supporting various parties. Let’s assume there are 23 Whigs, 34 Liberal Democrats, and 17 Texas Nationalists. Is that same vote total transmitted upward to each of the individual districts?
Why can’t I just vote directly for the person I want to serve for my district.
1. Yes
2. For a variety of reasons I’ve explained quite a few times previously, and will explain again as time allows.
@MaxZ,
So under current law I can go to vote and vote for a Whig senator, a Liberal Democrat representative, and a Texas Nationalist county commissioner. Under your regime, I would go stand with one clod of voters and be counted.
How would it be decided who the appointing agent for the political parties was?
The parties would.
@MaxZ,
Since your scheme appears to be a thought exercise, I have a couple of suggestions that I thought of.
First we build Palaces of Democracy in each election precinct. We provide enclosures that would prevent voters from wandering about while we are trying to count the voters in each group. In Texas, there could be several 1000 voters at a meeting. We might have bars covered with chicken wire separating the groups. These might be referred to as cages, but that might provoke controversy. Paddocks or pens, perhaps?
So voters would be checked in and fitted with a tracking device such as is used for road races. They can freely move between the cages until a time limit is reached or there have been no more switched. The doors to cages would be locked. Then the cages would be emptied one-by-one. A voter would step through a scanner like at airports, and his/her name would be announced. The voter would be asked if they wanted to vote for the Whig Party (etc.) and they could say Yes or No. If they say Yes, their hand would be stamped with a number, and their name would appear on giant tote boards and posted to Facebook, Tik Tok, X, Youtube, etc.
If you accept this idea, I have some more questions.
Of course not.
@MaxZ,
How would you control people from wandering about in a room with 1000s of voters? If it takes 5 seconds to count each voter, it would take 7 hours to count 5000 voters.
Does any such problem exist with the aforementioned Iowa Democrat procedure? To my knowledge, no. You are inventing solutions to imaginary problems.