Here is an Associated Press story about Ralph Nader’s petition submission. The story says he ended up with 57,000 signatures.
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Blogs that are chosen to be part of the “www.news.google.com” service get a big lift. Congratulations to Austin Cassidy and Jason Seagraves on having www.independentpoliticalreport.com blog now included in the google news service. http://ThirdPartyWatch.com also enjoys that status, as does this blog. Having that status is even good for the commenters, because their comments also receive a bigger audience.
Blogs that are chosen to be part of the “www.news.google.com” service get a big lift. Congratulations to Austin Cassidy and Jason Seagraves on having www.independentpoliticalreport.com blog now included in the google news service. http://ThirdPartyWatch.com also enjoys that status, as does this blog. Having that status is even good for the commenters, because their comments also receive a bigger audience.
Texas Representative Leo Berman, featured in the blog post just below this one, has kindly responded to my e-mail on Texas ballot access. He is chair of the House Elections Committee, and it would be very desirable for those of you who live in Texas to communicate with him. It is always wise to be not only courteous, but as friendly as one can be, while still disagreeing. His district phone number is 903-939-2400. His fax is 903-939-2402. His e-mail is district6.berman@house.state.tx.us. If we could change his opinion, we probably could get ballot access reform in 2009.
Berman’s response is, “Thanks for your advice. It seems strange to us Texans to get advice from a Californian, especially someone from San Francisco! We’ve done quite well without advice from the left coast.”
I responded, “Please don’t hold my residence against me! I have testified in court in Texas, including Pilcher v Rains, the case that ruled that Texas can’t require voter registration affidavit numbers on petitions. I have testified in the Texas legislature on ballot access. When candidates can’t get on the Texas November ballot, they file to be write-in candidates. Counting write-ins adds to the expense and headaches for election officials. Schmitz got 6,039 write-ins in Texas in 1972. Nader in 2004 got 9,153 write-ins in Texas. All those ballots had to be set aside by the vote-counting equipment, and looked at by a human being, which is costly. So I don’t agree that Texas is getting along OK. But thanks again for writing.”
This newspaper story, published June 3, quotes Texas Representative Leo Berman defending Texas ballot access laws for minor parties and independents. Berman says preventing voters who vote in a primary from signing for a new or previously unqualified party, or for an independent candidate, is the same thing as preventing a voter from voting in the primary of two different parties.
Signing a petition for a new party is not the same thing as voting for that party. Signing a petition for a new party is merely the voter’s telling the government that the voter believes the party is significant enough to be on the ballot. Obviously signing a petition for a new party is not the same as voting for a new party, because the U.S. uses secret voting, and a petition is not secret. Not only can the circulator see who signs the petition, so can all the other people who view that petition, including elections officials when they validate the petition. Furthermore, no other state has a primary screenout for petitions to qualify a new party, so obviously legislators in the other states don’t agree with Berman’s theory.
The Texas Secretary of State’s office also defended Texas’ law, saying that since two independent candidates for Governor appeared on the ballot in 2006, the law is reasonable. They ignore the fact that the 2006 petition requirement for independent candidates was 45,253 signatures, but the 2008 independent presidential requirement is 74,108 signatures.
One benchmark of whether a state’s ballot access law is too difficult, is to see if that state kept the person who placed 3rd in the presidential election off its own state ballot. Texas law kept the 3rd place finisher off its ballot in 1972, 1984, and 2004. Also in 1976, Texas law would have kept the 3rd place finisher off its ballot, except that the US Supreme Court intervened. The 3rd place presidential finishers who couldn’t comply with Texas law were John G. Schmitz in 1972 (American Party candidate), David Bergland in 1984 (Libertarian), and Ralph Nader in 2004 (independent). Eugene McCarthy in 1976 (independent) only got on because the U.S. Supreme Court ordered him onto the Texas ballot.