Chicago Tribune Article on Illinois’ Byzantine Ballot Access Process

Posted on by October 13, 2024
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Here’s an article by Joe Mahr in today’s Chicago Tribune.

In the 2022 general election, all 118 seats in the Illinois House of Representatives and all 59 seats in the Illinois Senate were on the ballot. There were ZERO minor party and ZERO independent candidates on the ballot in those 177 elections.

The 2024 general election brings another impoverished smorgasbord of little to no choice elections for the people of Illinois. While New York is the only state with only two presidential candidates on the ballot, Illinois is one of four states with only three presidential candidates on the ballot (DC, North Dakota and Wyoming are the others).

I will analyze the 2024 general election ballot more completely and report on that ASAP, but we all know the approximate results beforehand. While the Democratic Party proclaims itself the savior of democracy in this nation, the Democratic Party of Illinois is doing all it can to stamp out political competition in that state.

Libertarian Party of Ohio Joins Coalition in Support of Redistricting Reform Initiative in Ohio

Posted on by October 11, 2024
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Thanks to the LPOH for joining this coalition. Yesterday, I blogged a Christian Science Monitor story about the former Chief Justice of Ohio Supreme Court’s support for Issue 1, even though she is a Republican, while the Ohio GOP opposes the measure.

Here is the story on the LPOH’s support for Issue 1 from Independent Political Report.

If They’re Attacking You, You Must Be Doing Something Right

Posted on by October 11, 2024
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Congratulations to Jill Stein. The Democratic Party and the Harris/Walz ticket are now running an attack ad on her in “battleground states.” This, of course, is a problem of the legacy parties’ own doing, as they could provide Ranked Choice Voting or other alternative voting methods to the American public.

Here is a USA Today story on Stein and other minor party presidential candidates.

Arkansas Times Story on Rejection of County Initiatives Requiring Paper Ballots in Arkansas Elections

Posted on by October 11, 2024
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This isn’t the most unbiased story that you’ll ever read, but it is an interesting one on an effort by to place initiatives on the ballot in certain Arkansas counties that would mandate use of paper ballots in those counties. The main reason for the failure of these initiatives to make the ballot is that Arkansas bans out of state residents from circulating initiative petitions in Arkansas.

I hope there is upcoming litigation to challenge that law, and there should be. For candidate and party petitions in the United States, there are no longer any restrictions barring out of state residents from circulating petitions. There used to be many such restrictions, including in Virginia, where, in the 1980s, petition circulators had to be Virginia registered voters and could only gather signatures of voters in their own congressional district on statewide candidate petitions.