Ballot Access in Alabama Too Strict
I read with interest today about the ballot access laws in Alabama. This is a subject I have dealt with before when I worked in the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office back in 1998.
Southern states in general have strict ballot access laws against third parties. This has had an adverse impact on many third party movements outside of the populist presidential campaigns of George Wallace (American Independent Party) and Strom Thurmond (States Rights). If you look at national third party campaigns you can see from Perot to John Anderson on down that third parties of traditionally faired much worse in the south than in other parts of the country.
Unfortunately Alabama has the most restrictive ballot access laws in the United States but almost every measurement. While I do not think we should have a free for all ballot that is crowded with hundreds of names that only confuse the electoral process, I do believe Alabama should loosen our restrictions. Currently to run for Governor a candidate must obtain roughly 40,000 verifiable signatures to get on the ballot. This is too high and should be reduced.
While I believe the intent of drafting these laws was to prevent a California style election where ballots can be several pages long, I think it has had an adverse impact on democracy here in our state. Third parties are not a threat to the Republican or Democrat Party in Alabama. History shows this quite clearly. But why not allow more participants in political debate. It sure couldn’t hurt.
Sure it takes extra effort to get on the ballot but if you cannot get 3% of the voters to sign a petition how are you going to be competitive running in the race? If you do not have 3% of the support to help you get on the ballot you are not going to be competitive. What happens when we make it easier and it is still not easy enough access for everybody and the calls continue. What these third parties want is a free for all ballot where any and every party from the Libertarian Party to the Pro-Pooper Scooper Party has a candidate for each office. Do we really want that when these candidates have no legitimate chance?
Comment by William Wyatt Wallace — July 6, 2007 @ 10:19 am
I don’t have a problem with ballot access requirements so that candidates are legitimate candidates. My problem is that these candidates have spend their time going around trying to gather 40,000 signature instead of being able to raise money and spread their message. As I said in my previous post I have no interest in making it an electoral free-for-all with a 10 page ballot but how does the debate in our state benefit from being the toughest in the country on ballot access?
Comment by Cam Ward — July 6, 2007 @ 10:27 am
That’s really the issue, Wallace. If a candidate is successful getting the signatures, he or she has already spent a considerable amount of money. A Republican or Democrat would have the same problem if they had to get all those signatures, although their built-in party loyalists would make it easier.
Comment by Dan — July 6, 2007 @ 10:33 am
[…] State Rep. Cam Ward (R-Alabaster) - Ballot Access in Alabama Too Strict […]
Pingback by BTL: Ballot access laws — July 6, 2007 @ 10:45 am
Getting the signatures is campaigning that they would be spending money and time on either way and actually it helps them because it makes them speak to voters individually and ask each individual for their support. Who says they can’t spread their message and get funding when getting they are collecting the signatures. The difference between that campaigning and normal campaigning is instead of openly asking for people’s support they get their supporters to sign for them. And these minor parties would have their built-in party loyalists to get signatures from. it is only 3% of the voters sure 40,000 is a lot of people but it is only 3% of the voters. Nobody talks about the provision for getting ballot access by receiving a certain total of the vote, I do not know the exact numbers, but when the Libertarians got onto the ballot they would have stayed on the ballot had they gotten somewhere around 15% of the vote in a statewide election I believe. Don’t quote me on the statute that is what I think it is. They couldn’t even get 15% of the vote for one candidate, why should they be on the ballot?
Comment by William Wyatt Wallace — July 6, 2007 @ 11:37 am
And also I know you do not support a free for all, but if the ballot access laws do not make it easier for these parties then they will begin to grumble again and they will not be happy until it is a free for all.
Comment by William Wyatt Wallace — July 6, 2007 @ 11:42 am
Problem is what is a legitimate candidate? I think you run into major problems if you push that issue. Forcing a candidate to get out, meet the people and gain some support is not a bad idea. I think all candidates should have to meet same rules to get on the ballot though.
Comment by walt moffett — July 6, 2007 @ 3:12 pm
The Democrats ran Larry Darby in the primary election against John Tyson for attorney general. Darby is a Holocaust denier who called for public hangings of undocumented immigrants in the public square. I know it wasn’t a general election, but I had no problem with him being on the ballot.
The only legitimate reason to have some restrictions on ballot access is to keep down the clutter so that you don’t have 50 people running for an office. As long as that’s met, I think it’s incumbent on any REPUBLIC (of all things) to allow the voters as wide a choice as possible.
Instead, in Alabama, over half the state House races last year were unopposed. Nearly half of the state Senate races were unopposed. The current ballot access laws do not keep down “clutter,” they keep people off the ballot.
And if you think it’s not such a bad thing for “a candidate to get out, meet the people and gain some support,” of course you’re right. But how about we make it fair and require every party to get these signatures instead of focusing on all the political parties that didn’t have the luxury of being in office when the laws were written.
Comment by Dan — July 6, 2007 @ 5:08 pm
[…] I wrote this comment for State Rep. Cam Ward’s post on Doc’s Political Parlor, but I wanted to share it here as well. I added a few statistics in this post. […]
Pingback by BTL: Ballot access - Promoted from Doc’s comments — July 6, 2007 @ 5:14 pm
Dan the two current parties are following the same law. I will find it and show it to you, I do not know the exact numbers like I said earlier, but as long as the Republicans or Democrats receive at least 15% of the vote in ANY statewide election they get to stay on the ballot. If the Libertarians would have accomplished the fact of getting 15% of the vote in ANY statewide race they would have stayed on the ballot for the next election. I have not had time to check the state law but I will find it. And as for the comment about a legitimate candidate, by legitimate candidate I mean a candidate that is going to have a real chance at winning, not a novel candidate that is trying to make a point and that is it. If the Libertarians want to get on the ballot that is great for them. Their problem is who is going to sign a petition so a pro-pot candidate can run for governor. Or how about when Libertarians were on the ballot and one of the candidates for Public Service Commission is now in jail in Jefferson County for being one of the first people caught for trying to pick up underage girls on Myspace? If they get a candidate with a legit shot at winning and put their resources behind that person and just focus on getting on the ballot and getting 15% of the vote, they are in. Until they can do that all they have is sitting around crying that the laws make ballot access too restrictive. If you cannot get 15% of the vote you don’t need to be on the ballot. By the way I have started a new blog, it is brand new so please give it a chance. It is at www.realalabamapolitics.blogspot.com.
Comment by William Wyatt Wallace — July 6, 2007 @ 5:38 pm
From your blog you seem to be a realist. And really, I don’t see why having 2 candidates for a race is unreasonable. I can also tell you from experience that even a candidate with decent support (who would normally garner maybe 5-10% of the vote) doesn’t usually have the ability to get the signatures for ballot access. I’m talking district races here. I doubt I’ve seen a state-wide candidate who has had that appeal statewide.
Don’t worry about finding the law. I’ve read it and I know what you’re talking about. My point was that Democrats and Republicans met that law when it was written. It also wasn’t written because there were too many “illegitimate” candidates on the ballot. It was written simply to exclude.
I’m not going to lie. I want libertarians on there because I prefer libertarians… well… some libertarians. But at the VERY LEAST, they should allow the independent or third party candidate who had the highest signatures in races where there is only one person on the ballot otherwise.
I’ll check out your blog in the coming days.
Comment by Dan — July 6, 2007 @ 5:46 pm
Rather than having to gather up petitions and the inevitable protests, verifications etc, I would be happy with just filing the right papers with the Secretary of State. I need more of a choice than writing in “none of the above” or Cthulhu. Democracy like eating pizza is best when its messy. If I got to wade thru fifty choices for governor, senator, constable, to vote for the Screaming Loonie candidate, so be it.
Comment by walt moffett — July 6, 2007 @ 8:33 pm
I’m sure William knows that 20% of the vote is required for a minor party to stay on the ballot, not the 5% difference makes much difference to his argument.
I have a question though for William and those who support Alabama’s current requirements: What makes you think that loosening (not repealing) the requirements will mean page and pages of candidates or even 50 candidates or whatever?
As Dan pointed out, many of the legislative races went unopposed last year. If people were unwilling to just sign their name up with a political party and pay the qualifying fee, what makes you think that a large number of candidates would be willing to put in the shoe leather to get a reduced number of signatures as independent or minor party candidates?
Comment by Ed — July 6, 2007 @ 10:06 pm
I have my own take on these issues here:
http://mamasapplepie.blogspot.com/2007/07/5000.html
http://mamasapplepie.blogspot.com/2007/07/ballot-access.html
Comment by RogueWriter — July 6, 2007 @ 10:08 pm
Cthulhu
The fact that you are aware of that name makes me happy.
Comment by Dan — July 6, 2007 @ 11:40 pm
Ed thanks for the correction, and you are correct the 5% makes little difference in my arguement. I applaud you doing your homework. I learned later when I did as I said and found the law. I think it is an illogical arguement to say, well all of these major party races were unopposed, why would minor party candidates run if they could have done it so easily as just sign and pay. A lot of these minor party candidates that would be willing to go through this leg work, no matter if it required 5,000 or 50,0000 signatures are dedicated to their party. Why would a Libertarian run as a Republican or Democrat if they don’t agree with the party? Granted I do advocate that for them to get on the ballot, I think it is a matter of principle. Plus the races he highlighted are US House and State Senate. Both of these races require at least 6 figure campaign budgets. A better starting place would be to look at County Commissions, Sheriffs, Coroners, State House. Everybody keeps throwing out this 37,000-40,000 signature total, but starting at the top makes no sense. If a party wants to win they have to start small. Making the ballot access easier will not cause this huge influx of candidates, but if the standards are lowered there will be other minor parties that are excluded and I see it ending up as a Free-For-All. Sorry if I rambled, I have been up for 20 hours now.
Comment by William Wyatt Wallace — July 7, 2007 @ 12:20 am
Good point about that Mr. Wallace. That is correct with the total number of signature being much smaller with lower offices. I think we all pretty much agree on the need to prevent free for all style ballots the question is who makes the call as to what the threshold requirement is? To be honest I don’t think there is a magic number.
Comment by Cam Ward — July 7, 2007 @ 9:45 am
My primary reason for wanting to see an easing of our ballot access law is that I believe that having (in most cases) only one or two candidates running for an office deprives voters of being able to hear and weigh differing viewpoints on issues, some of which may be better than anything else proposed. It limits our ability to choose a candidate who might be able to help bring about needed changes that other candidates won’t or don’t touch for whatever reasons.
That said, I don’t want to have a ballot the size of a small telephone book, either.
I would suggest a new ballot access law that would limit the number of candidates for an office to a reasonable number, perhaps somewhere around from 4 to 6, and that the law limit those candidates (including Democrats and Republicans) to those who obtain the highest number (rather than some percentage of whatever) of signatures of qualified voters asking that the candidate be on the ballot. The signatures would have to be verified as those of qualified voters by the Secretary of State. It seems to me that such a law would provide a more level playing field for candidates, and that the public would be better served.
Comment by Don — July 7, 2007 @ 10:17 am
I should add to my prior comment that such a law could eliminate the necessity of having primary elections, saving everyone money since the two major parties that now conduct primaries do it at the expense of the state, and ultimately taxpayers, rather than financing their primaries themselves. Also, fewer elections might eliminate some of the voter fatigue caused by having to go to the polls so frequently, and it might actually increase voter participation when we have the general election.
Comment by Don — July 7, 2007 @ 10:29 am
William wrote: “Getting the signatures is campaigning that they would be spending money and time on either way and actually it helps them because it makes them speak to voters individually and ask each individual for their support. Who says they can’t spread their message and get funding when getting they are collecting the signatures. The difference between that campaigning and normal campaigning is instead of openly asking for people’s support they get their supporters to sign for them. And these minor parties would have their built-in party loyalists to get signatures from. it is only 3% of the voters sure 40,000 is a lot of people but it is only 3% of the voters.”
In general, and especially in high signature requirement states like Alabama, the only cost and time effective way to collect sigs is by paying professional petitioners to do the job. This is, in essence, a poll tax which Dems and Repubs don’t have to pay. If you want to make it fair, at least require the Dems and Repubs to have to pay a $100,000 fee to run for statewide office.
Comment by Stephen Gordon — July 7, 2007 @ 7:47 pm
William wrote: “Do we really want that when these candidates have no legitimate chance?”
Are you suggesting that you are wiser than the voters of the state and you should have the ability to impose your will on their available choices? The alternative seems equally distasteful: Do you think the voters of Alabama are too dumb to make their own decisions at the ballot box?
As for me, I’ll generally trust the voters to make a good decision before I’ll trust a government to limit the choice of the voters.
Comment by Stephen Gordon — July 7, 2007 @ 7:50 pm
Mr. Gordon I must say I am flattered to have brought you into this discussion. But I complete disagree with your arguement. I am going to make this specific to your party. 2002 your party did the leg work and got on the ballot and I applaud that, it is great. That shows that it can be done and that your party at least had the ability and with the number of “independent” voters in the state rising it would make sense to me to assume that the ability it there and stronger. When the Libertarian party got on the ballot they were unable to remain on the ballot. The two major parties do not have to pay this “poll tax” as you call it because they satisfy the requirement that could not be satisfied by the third party in 2002 and that was the 20% of the vote. So was the system not fair when your party made the ballot but could not get 1 out of 5 votes, 20%, in ANY statewide election and could not keep their spot on the ballot. And to tell you the truth your “only cost and time effective way” is definitely not effective, the only effective way to get ballot access is to build from the bottom up. Target county elections and build a base that way and then go after statewide elections. I have used the arguement already that a college graduate does not go out looking to get a job as the CEO, they go out and look for a job where they can work their way up to CEO. If you go straight for the top you are setting yourself up for failure. But that is just my view of how things are.
As for your second comment. I believe you are twisting my words and applaud you for that because you make a great arguement. But if you cannot get a mere 3% of the voters to sign a petition for you how are you going to get a plurality of the vote to put you in office? And the government is not limiting the choice of the voters. The voters have the choice of signing your petition or not, nothing stops them from doing that. And what happens if there is a close election for Lt. Governor and say the Libertarian candidate receives 18% (close but not enough to stay on the ballot) if the Democrat and Republican are close you could have a Lt. Gov. winning with 41% of the total vote. Doesn’t sound much like the will of the people when almost 60% of the state voted for other people. What happens when every person that serves in the state is getting close to 40% and winning? How can we have a legitimate government when a large majority (approaching a supermajority) has voted against that person? And no I do not think the voters of alabama are too dumb to make their own decisions at the ballot box, I think they are smart enough to make their own decisions and I think they are smart enough to make their own decisions before the ballot box when they have the option to sign the petition or not. We are talking about 3% of the voters.
Don’t get me wrong, if another party makes it on the ballot, GREAT for them and I wish the minor parties luck in trying to get on the ballot. But I do not think we need to make it easier for them, because what happens if we lower the requirement and only Libertarian candidates can make it on the ballot. What happens when the Green party gets a following in the State and they can’t quite make it on the ballot. Do we lower the requirements again because only the Libertarians could make it on the ballot? And with that how much do we lower? Do we have a free for all ballot where if you want to have a party you can be on the ballot? And if that happens the people that should not be able to reproduce come out of the woodwork, like the guy that ran a Write-In campaign for Mayor for his TERRIER. Yep that guy will come out, you’re crazy neighbor that believes there were other shooters in Dallas (and that he was one of them) yep he comes out, your other neighbor that wears aluminum foil hats so aliens can’t read his brain will come out. These men will each get a collective 3 (4 if the dog votes absentee) votes. We will have a ballot the size of the Eutaw phonebook. I am not a fan of people running insane campaigns that nobody takes serious. You’re party had one of these people, he ran for Public Service Commission in 2002. He ran in Autauga County for board of Education (Democrat), State House of Representatives (Democrat), City Council (Non-partisan but declared George Wallace Democrat in the newspaper) and now he is in the Jefferson County Lock-up for trying to pick up a 14 year old girl on myspace, and by the way the girl was really an obese balding police officer. If I find the link I’ll share it with you. If the people of the state wanted a third party candidate because they weren’t satisfied with the current two parties, your party would be on the ballot. If you made the Republicans and Democrats do the petitions, they would have them done in no time for little cost. But this has gotten long and it is approaching 2:00 AM so I am stopping now.
By the way my blog moved because I did not enjoy blogger. I am now at wordpress at http://realalabamapolitics.wordpress.com/
Mr. Gordon, I would love to continue this debate with you and I mean no disrepect by this post, on my blog you will see my philosophy of butt heads in the chamber and leave it in the chamber, be passionate but know the difference between work and life outside of work. So no matter how heated a discussion gets I do not believe in harboring hard feelings.
Comment by William Wyatt Wallace — July 8, 2007 @ 1:44 am
Cam: A magic number for statewide races would be 5,000, as current law applies to independent candidates running for president in Alabama.
Have you introduced legislation to ease up the ballot access requirements? Or are you trying to court the growing mass of independent voters by appearing as a “Reasonable Republican who is on their side”?
Comment by RogueWriter — July 8, 2007 @ 7:54 pm
This is not something I have introduced YET, but it is something I am interested in. As for trying to court some mass group as you say or appearing this way or that- hey I am just blogging some of my thoughts here. Sorry no grand conspiracy!!!! I am not up for election again until 2010 so not sure what group you think I am out there trying to “court.” Just talking about some issues not “appearing” to be anything.
Comment by Cam Ward — July 8, 2007 @ 8:01 pm
Thanks for the quick reply, Cam.
Not to be argumentative, but you were elected in 2002 and you claim you saw the problem with ballot access when you worked for Bennett in 1998. You’ve written in this post of the need to change the law.
I’m not sure you were “just talking about some issues”, since you seemed pretty emphatic about the need for change and are now suggesting you will bring legislation in the future.
Maybe the answer to my question is indeed “neither”. Maybe you just like to talk the talk but not walk the walk. That’s okay, if that’s the case. Just don’t be surprised (or feign surprise) that someone asked about it.
And yes, you could be working on appearances to build support now for whatever you may do in the future, or maybe you just like getting attention. Nothing a politician says or does lacks motivation.
I wish you the best in the next session.
Comment by RogueWriter — July 8, 2007 @ 9:15 pm
I don’t think I have ever had someone get on me when I agreed with them. This is a new one. But I do respect you cynical perspective of politicians and the legislature. It comes with the turf. Thanks again for blogging.
Comment by Cam Ward — July 8, 2007 @ 9:30 pm
It’s not enough to just agree, when you are a sitting legislator. But I won’t get into a long discussion of democratic theory and effective representation versus symbolic politics.
Comment by RogueWriter — July 8, 2007 @ 9:35 pm
And yes, thank you for your quick replies and for blogging too.
Comment by RogueWriter — July 8, 2007 @ 9:35 pm
Well I know I am not right about every issue and I am sure you and I would disagree on a lot of issues. I have nothing to base that on but I cannot imagine agreeing with anyone on eveything. I have pretty strong views on a lot of issues that I have never introduced legislation on in the past. Not to say I won’t in the future but just to be frank ballot access is an issue that bothers me but has never been one of my top 5 or 6 legislative priorities. The reason I say 5 or 6 is that I am a pretty active legislator as far as pushing bills and I think this session is the most I have ever passed with 3 general bills and 3 local bills. Not putting down ballot access because as I have written in my blog it is something I feel needs to be changed, I just didn’t put it ahead of my DOT bill, and some other issues which have always been my priority. Maybe I should work on this issue more in addition to my other legislative bills. I guess there is only so much a person can get done at one time. Not trying to make any excuses, I guess I am just speaking my mind in this forum.
Comment by Cam Ward — July 8, 2007 @ 9:43 pm
William,
First of all, call me Steve. :)
RE: “2002 your party did the leg work and got on the ballot and I applaud that, it is great. That shows that it can be done and that your party at least had the ability and with the number of “independent” voters in the state rising it would make sense to me to assume that the ability it there and stronger.”
True, we got on the ballot, but we wasted most of our resources in doing so. Those resources could have been used for campaigning. It’s like having to run 26 miles just to get to the starting line of the marathon.
RE: “When the Libertarian party got on the ballot they were unable to remain on the ballot. The two major parties do not have to pay this “poll tax” as you call it because they satisfy the requirement that could not be satisfied by the third party in 2002 and that was the 20% of the vote.”
It requires 20% of the vote to retain ballot access status in Alabama, which is (I believe at the moment) the most stringent retention requirement in the entire country.
Comment by Stephen Gordon — July 9, 2007 @ 7:21 am
William,
RE: “And to tell you the truth your “only cost and time effective way” is definitely not effective, the only effective way to get ballot access is to build from the bottom up. Target county elections and build a base that way and then go after statewide elections.
I generally agree and this will hopefully be the general strategy of the LPA for years to come. However, there are many exceptions to the rule, an obvious one being Jesse Ventura in Minnesota.
Other issues are at play here, too. When I was working for the national party, the one trend nationally which seems always consistent that that the more people you run for office (at any level), the more wins you get. The reasons suggested vary, but they include acclimating voters to pulling the “L” lever, the increased PR of multiple candidates running on the same general platform, simplified organization at the state and local party level, the coattail effect, and it lets voters know you are more serious.
Comment by Stephen Gordon — July 9, 2007 @ 7:28 am
Cam,
If you are looking at sponsoring ballot access legislation, I’d strongly recommend talking with IndependentAlabama. (www.IndependentAlabama.org) They’ve got some of the best minds in the state (and national expertise available) in this sort of issue.
Comment by Stephen Gordon — July 9, 2007 @ 7:32 am
My bottom line on the Libertarian Party and ballot access laws in Alabama:
1) Alabama has some of the toughest laws (when one looks at the total impact of signature requirements, retention requirements, etc.)
2) In reality, the only cost and time effective way to petition is to hire professional petitioners. In reality, this is nothing but a poll tax which the other parties don’t have to pay.
3) Multiple studies have indicated that more and more Americans are becoming disenchanted with the two-party system and more and more of them are identifying themselves as libertarians.
4) While I was working as political director at the national office of the Libertarian Party, we won between 25 and 33 percent of our local runs, including 7 out of 11 this last April. The races are winnable — getting on the ballot is the toughest part.
Comment by Stephen Gordon — July 9, 2007 @ 7:41 am
[…] There is some very interesting, ongoing debate about ballot access going on at Doc’s Political Parlor. Here’s one example: What these third parties want is a free for all ballot where any and every party from the Libertarian Party to the Pro-Pooper Scooper Party has a candidate for each office. […]
Pingback by GordonUnleashed » Blog Archive » Ballot access debate — July 9, 2007 @ 8:04 am
I have to wonder if anyone even bothered to read and try to comprehend what I said in my comments 18 and 19, above.
If they did, do they think my suggestion is so stupid that it doesn’t rate even a response saying that it is, or what?
Comment by Don — July 9, 2007 @ 5:14 pm
Don, I agree with a lot of your comments especially since I would also like to strike a balance between a ballot that is too restrictive and one that is the size of a phone book. Where that balance is I just don’t know but this blog sure has turned out to be a popular forum for discussing it and there have been suggestions all over the board. I don’t agree completely with you about the primary system though. At first blush it sounds great to make the two major parties start paying for their own primary. National under the current law, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and Greens all get some degree of financial help in putting on their national convention. Second, one of the big reason the state started hosting these primaries several decades ago was to get away from the caucus system where the state executive committee of a party would meeet and just pick a nominee for every office. Roughly .0003% of the entire state actually had a say in that process and I don’t really want to go back there. While I know you would like to see parties pay for their own primary (and I know a lot of people on this forum will agree with you) I think this will push both Democrats and Republicans back into a caucus structure whereby voter participation from the general public is virtually eliminated. This would be bad also because most races in Alabama are decided in the primary election since so many district are strongly one party or another. I don’t want a handful of party bigwigs picking virtually 75% of our state and county officials.
Comment by Cam Ward — July 9, 2007 @ 5:56 pm
Cam,
I’ve generally agreed with your assessments, but wish to correct a factual error. You said, “National under the current law, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and Greens all get some degree of financial help in putting on their national convention.”
This is absolutely incorrect. The Libertarian Party is not eligible for such funding and would refuse it if it was made available.
References: http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/pubfund.shtml#Convention
“Each major political party is entitled to $4 million (plus cost-of-living adjustments)8 to finance its national Presidential nominating convention.” — Note: there is a lot more money used, if you check media references from 2004 conventions.
http://www.lp.org/yourturn/archives/000594.shtml
http://www.lp.org/media/article_449.shtml
A point should be made here: Libertarians are opposed to the use (I’ve written multiple press releases on the topic) of public funds for political conventions while Republicans have been accepting such funds for years. Now who is out of the mainstream on this issue?
Comment by Stephen Gordon — July 10, 2007 @ 2:27 pm
Well I was wrong about the conventions. I did go back and do some more research and you are correct on that one. Of course many of your candidates do accept public financing but these are usually state financial matches and not FEC matching monies since the federal money is restricted to those who received more than 5% in the previous election. So yes you are correct about the conventions, I should have just said not all Libertarian candidates refuse public financing. Thanks for correcting me on that one.
Comment by Cam Ward — July 10, 2007 @ 2:46 pm
Representative Ward,
You said, “National under the current law, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and Greens all get some degree of financial help in putting on their national convention. Second, one of the big reason the state started hosting these primaries several decades ago was to get away from the caucus system where the state executive committee of a party would meet and just pick a nominee for every office. Roughly .0003% of the entire state actually had a say in that process and I don’t really want to go back there. While I know you would like to see parties pay for their own primary (and I know a lot of people on this forum will agree with you) I think this will push both Democrats and Republicans back into a caucus structure whereby voter participation from the general public is virtually eliminated. This would be bad also because most races in Alabama are decided in the primary election since so many district are strongly one party or another. I don’t want a handful of party bigwigs picking virtually 75% of our state and county officials.”
My question to you sir, is why do the supposedly free citizens of Alabama have to jump through the hoops of national law, or what the Alabama executive committee of any political party has to say? Why can’t registered and qualified voters in Alabama have their say and just ignore the political parties, or whatever, in our state? After all Sir, with all due respect to you as an Alabama legislator, the citizens of our state own, pay for, and should have more of a voice in the government they own……………..or do we in reality, or should we, Representative Ward?
Comment by Don — July 10, 2007 @ 3:50 pm
Well let me take your question piece by piece and try to answer it. First, the reason the free citizens of Alabama have to obey the national law is because, well that is the law. Of course I am not too sure what national law you are talking about here. As far as political parties go you can most certainly ignore them and vote for whoever you want to vote for. As far as who a party selects as their party nominee, then you can vote for their nominee, or vote for some other party nominee if you don’t like either one then you can write in the name of a candidate. As far your question (or comment?) about having more ownership in government I think the citizens should have as much as possible and I do not believe I have ever stated otherwise. I have always advocated for more citizen participation and openness in govt. Any one is free to ignore political parties and I sure wouldn’t argue against that right. I am really not sure what you are trying to say here??
Comment by Cam Ward — July 10, 2007 @ 4:37 pm
Representative Ward, reading back, I see that I didn’t make myself clear regarding “national law”. Of course, we have to obey any law or face the consequences of not doing so. What I was trying to ask, is why do we have to follow the example of the national law you mentioned that gives financial aid to political parties for their conventions, if that is to be used to justify why our state government pays for the party primary elections?
I doubt that there’s any prospect of parties going back to the caucus system under any circumstance. Democrats learned that was a horrible idea several years ago and surely Republicans paid attention.
If our ballot access law were changed as I suggested in 18 and 19 (above) the candidates whose names are on the ballot would be chosen by qualified registered voters who signed petitions asking that candidates X Y or Z be on the ballot in a general election, rather than by party caucuses or party primaries that are paid for by taxpayers through the state. Parties could still have an influence on which members of their party get on the ballot by helping them obtain the signatures required. If 4 candidates are allowed to be on the ballot for an office it’s possible they might all be from the same party, or that they might be from 2, 3, or 4 parties, but at least voters picked them with their signatures, and the expense of primaries would be eliminated.
I didn’t intend to give the impression that you have ever done anything other than be in favor of citizens owning their government and having as much influence in it as practical and possible. I believe you have record of being one of our better legislators on that score.
Comment by Don — July 11, 2007 @ 8:21 am
Cam, thanks for engaging us in this discussion. I have posted a new entry on my blog about ballot access raising some additional concerns and throwing out some ideas for making ballot access serve all interests better. I’d appreciate your reading it and commenting. Of course, I’d appreciate comments from anyone - Don, Stephen, Dan, William. Thanks.
http://mamasapplepie.blogspot.com/2007/07/ballot-access-visited-again.html
Comment by RogueWriter — July 11, 2007 @ 2:44 pm
Thank you for blogging on this too. This has been one of the more popular discussions I have had since I started blogging. Both sides of the debate really got into this one so it has been a fun one. I am somewhat new at the blogging thing but it has been enjoyable to watch and participate in the blog forums because they are so much of a wide open and honest debate. I look forward to discussing the issues some more with you in the future.
By the way I checked out your blog and you have a nice site by the way.
Comment by Cam Ward — July 11, 2007 @ 2:48 pm
This was fun, sorry I got lazy towards the end. We should do it again, throw out a hot topic and then go at each other.
Comment by William Wyatt Wallace — July 11, 2007 @ 11:14 pm
As a Libertarian in another state with fairly restrictive ballot access laws (Ohio, we are currently trying to gather the 20,000+ valid signatures needed to run our candidates with the word ‘Libertarian’ next to their name), I found this discussion board rather interesting. Last year, a federal court ruled that Ohio’s ballot access laws were an unconstitutional burdern. As a result, our Secretary of State cut in half (to the 20,000 level mentioned earlier, this is 1/2% the signatures cast in our most recent gubernatorial election) the number of signatures required for the government to recognize an assembly of petitioning citizens and moved the date back 20 days to nearly the end of November (a mere 11.5 months before the election!!)
Even with these new, lower requirments, there is some concern in our state government that the law might still be unconstitutional. We have party members who served in Iraq who would like to run as Libertarians, but are unable to do so because when they return from war, they discover that the government does not recognize their political affiliation. Libertarians, other third-parties, and independants are completely cut out of the political process in the state of Ohio to a large degree. While Jennifer Brunner’s office has done an excellent job in meeting the requirements of the federal ruling, the Constitution, Green, and Natural Law Parties are all unlikely to achieve ballot access for 2008.
This thread has mentioned the horrors involved with the California recall election from 2003 and the likely confusion that would cause voters. In that election, voters were so confused, that 94% of them voted for the top three individuals (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2003/recall/pages/governor/)! That sure sounds like Californians were confused. But let’s compare that to another election that everyone heard of that had a long list of candidates, the Iraqi election where people who had never participated in elections for anything were faced with a listing of 111 parties (no names). In that race, a very confused 89% of the population cast their ballot for the top three candidates (http://www.ballot-access.org/2005/0505.html , click on “6. IRAQ ELECTION”). That sounds pretty decisive for people who should have been overwhelmed with the burden of democracy.
The state of Florida has 28 recognized political parties (http://election.dos.state.fl.us/online/parties.shtml), and aside from the occasional hanging chad, they don’t seem to be deep in a quandry every time there is an election. Indeed, rather than choose to exclude people from the process, Florida has chosen to allow all to participate, and by doing so has enfranchised everyone from Christians to Socialists who felt otherwise unrepresented by the two major parties.
I also believe that there was an earlier post related to building the party from the ground up. I think that is an excellent idea. The reason that third parties go after the large races first is because that’s where the laws are set that allow them to maintain ‘recognized’ status. If we didn’t have to go through the expense of running a candidate for governor but knew that we could still run as Libertarian after the next race, maybe small parties would concentrate on local races. We HAVE to run top-ticket candidates under the current system in order to be able to run for village mayor the next year with our party label. If we cannot run under the party label locally, how will voters ever find out that the guy in city hall who privitized the trash service and saved them millions in taxes was Libertarian, or that the councilman who mandated solar panels on every new house was a member of the Green Party?
In short, please remember that the Republican and Democratic Parties predate marriage licenses, civil rights, and atomic weapons. But at some point, they were both upstarts taking on the successors to the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Parties. For the first several decades, our country adapted to changing times with new challenges by creating new organizations that refreshed the lifeblood of our republic. Today the ability of the People to do so again is severely curtailed, perhaps to the point of impossibility.
Comment by Mike J. — July 13, 2007 @ 12:42 pm
[…] Rep. Cam Ward (R - Alabaster) on ballot access in Alabama. […]
Pingback by Ballot Access in Alabama » Doc’s Political Parlor — July 27, 2007 @ 3:01 am
The simply point is this is a discriminatory practice. It is very easy to get on a ballot is you subscribe to the beliefs of one of the two major parties but you are treated differently if you refuse to join and instead join a third party. This isn’t right. If we want a barrier then it needs to apply to all parties equally no free pass for the two established parties. We can not determine if someone can get on the ballot based on their political standing and beliefs but that is exactly what is happening here. Personally I think it is unconstitutional and I would love to see a third party take it to the US supreme court and have it struck down since it clearly violates several amendments including in my opinion the equal protection clause.
Comment by Larry — October 27, 2007 @ 11:53 am