“Sham candidates” are candidates who have no sincere interest in running for office, but who get on the ballot because one of the more powerful candidates in the same race, or one of the major parties, thinks that the sham candidate’s presence on the ballot will subtract from the total of votes that the other powerful candidate may receive. So, one of the powerful candidates, or parties, initiates the process by which the sham candidate gets on the ballot.
Virtually all attempts at running sham candidates in the general election have failed to achieve their intended purpose. The latest instance of a sham candidate was in the recent special Arizona State Senate election, prompted by a recall petition filed against State Senator Russell Pearce. Backers of Pearce arranged for a sham candidate with a Hispanic surname to appear on the ballot, in hopes that the vote against Pearce would thereby be split. But the sham candidate revealed herself to be a sham candidate by hiding from the media, doing no campaigning, and finally (when the pressure on her was intense) withdrawing from the race.
Arizona was the scene of other sham candidates in 2010. Republicans recruited several people to run in the Green Party primary (against the wishes of the Green Party), for offices for which these Republicans thought the vote would be close. These Republican activists thought that some voters who would otherwise vote for Democratic nominees would instead vote for these Green Party nominees, even though these particular Green Party candidates had no active campaign. But, again, when the publicity about the sham candidates increased, most of them withdrew, and the few who did not had no effect on who won the election.
Michigan also saw an attempt to run sham candidates in 2010. Democratic Party officials engineered a petition drive to place the Tea Party on the ballot, and arranged for the new party to hold a nominating convention and place nominees on the ballot in certain races in which the party expected the vote to be close. But, first the petition was invalidated on a technicality, and then one Democratic Party official was convicted of fraud, because the party had supposedly nominated certain individuals, but those individuals had not agreed to run, and in at least one instance the supposed candidate’s name on the declaration of candidacy was forged.
Florida saw a similar attempt in 2008, when Republican Party activists recruited five apolitical people to file to run in the Green Party primary for the legislature. These Republican Party activists saw to it that the candidates themselves did not need to pay their own filing fees. When campaign finance reports by these so-called candidates failed to reveal who had paid the filing fees, Democrats sued to obtain the information. The suit was dropped because, after the election, the candidates moved to new residences and only one could be found by the process-servers. In any event, the presence of the five sham Green Party nominees did not affect the outcome of any of the races; in each case one of the major party nominees polled over 50% of the total vote.
Colorado, in 2004, saw two sham political parties placed on the ballot, the Pro Life Party and the Gun Owners Party. The required signatures (10,000) were obtained by Democratic Party activists. However, the presence of these two sham parties had no effect on the election, because the creators of these two sham parties never found anyone to run for office under the banner of either party.
Sham candidate maneuvers generally fail because the sham candidates themselves hide from the press, don’t campaign, don’t answer the door when reporters try to visit, and so usually their motives are uncovered and publicized.
