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- Planks about ballot access and democracy from Mark Rauterkus
- Democracy-plank-ballot-access from KEN KRAWCHUK on Judge's ruling against fair ballot access from April, 2006
- Rigging State Elections from Dimitri of the Trib in April, 2006
Statements[]
- Ballot access gets slammed by candidate John Murphy in June, 2006
- Ballot-access-statement-Random
- Ballot-access-LTE-Robertson from P-G on October 14, 2006, All political parties should play by the same rules
Old Pennsylvania ballot access laws are restrictive.[]
Coalition of third parties and independents, Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition, PBAC, includes: Libertarians, Greens, Constitutionals, Reforms, Naderites, America First-ers, have been meeting and defined common ground since 2003.
Ed Rendell set up a commission on election reform, and its considering whether or not to include the PBAC in public hearings. The PBAC
Priorities of the PBAC:[]
- Equal number of signatures for all citizens, regardless of political affiliation, matching the minimums listed at 25 C.S. 2872.1;
- A "Delaware Model", defining a minor party as any party with 0.05% (1/20 of 1%) of the registered voters, with the potential for eliminating signature gathering for minor parties entirely;
- Establishing a write-in procedure for presidential candidates.
Insights[]
Third-party candidates running for statewide offices need 34 times as many signatures as Democrats and Republicans to be on the November 2006 ballot.
PA election law requires that third-party candidates and independents garner signatures amounting to 2 percent of the votes of the highest voter-getter in the previous election for that district. The old parties, (Ds and Rs), don't need the same numbers.
- For statewide offices this year, including governor, lieutenant governor, U.S. Senate and others, that amounts to a record 67,000 signatures. That's because in 2004, Bob Casey Jr. won 3.3 million votes for state treasurer. Krawchuk said third parties actually may need as many as 100,000 signatures to account for those that might be thrown out for various reasons.
- Meanwhile, Democratic and Republican candidates need a flat 1,000 to 2,000 votes to place candidates on primary ballots for top statewide offices, depending on the position.
Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition wants to make PA election code like that in Delaware.[]
Delaware law allows an automatic listing of third-party candidates on a general election ballot, with no signatures required, if the party membership amounts to at least 0.05 percent of registered voters in the state.
The proposal also asks that independent candidates be required to gather as many signatures as Democrats and Republicans.
Links[]
- Position Paper on PA Ballot Access in PDF format.
Elsewhere[]
- newsobserver.com | North Carolina's two-party monopoly -- Point of View, July 2006 - DURHAM - Suppose for a minute that you disagreed with both the Democratic and Republican parties. Not that you necessarily disagreed with their platforms and their public statements, but say you didn't like how the parties actually govern.