Should Political Parties have a "right" to the ballot?, page


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Topic started on 15-8-2005 @ 06:30 AM by The Vagabond
Before I go off on a rant, I thought I'd ask you all what you feel about the information below. How do you feel about our ballot access system which stifles 3rd party candidates and keeps two stagnant parties in control. What would you do to give yourself more choice at the polls?


Few people would be likely to dispute that there simply isn't much of a choice to make at the ballot box in America, especially when it comes to races where there are very few seats being filled for a large area (Senate, Governor, President).

You've basically got two choices- the Republican or the Democrat, and that's not much of a choice for the average voter, because the two are polar opposites on many issues. If you believe in Abortion rights, Gay Marriage, Gun Control, and Fiscal Conservatism, you are up a creek without a paddle, because the majority of the things most precious to you personally are embraced by a party which generally does not stand for the economic strategy which you view as being best for America. Your only hope is to find somebody who fits your views in the primaries, where you have a broader selection, but everyone in the primary for your party is a member of your party, and is restricted as such if he wants to remain in good standing with his party.

If it's been a while since government class (or even otherwise, considering the state of public education) you may wonder exactly what gives the two major parties their right to be on the ballot, while other ideologies must struggle just to get on the ballot in a hand full of states, and have no real chance of winning.

This started in the 1880s when the secret ballot was introduced. Before then, it was common for parties to distribute tickets which were simply dropped into the ballot box by registered voters. Obviously this made fraud a huge problem, since there were more available ballots than voters. When the design of ballots came under the control of state legislatures though, the party which controlled a states legislature gained the ability to dictate the criteria for ballot access as was most advantageous to them. They could shut out competition if serious competition existed (usually by requiring huge signature drives just to get on the ballot) or they could loosen the requirements if there competition to their opponents was more prevalent in the third parties.
Of course the parties exempted themselves from such signature drives. Typically if you were on the ballot last time, you will be on it next time, and hence the two major parties have never actually had to compete for ballot access.

Since then, only a handfull of candidates have managed to get themselves onto every presidential ballot in America. In fact the only two that I can name are Socialist candidate Eugene Debbs in 1912 and Ross Perot in 1996. As of 1994, to get onto every congressional ballot in America, a third party would have needed 1.5 million signitures, whereas less than a tenth of that would be required to get any given candidate into the primaries for an established party. www.ballot-access.org...


reply posted on 21-8-2005 @ 01:17 AM by The Vagabond
Originally posted by Majic
That's basically what parties do.


That is the nature of politics. One can not expect to just waltz into office and do everything like Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and succeed. The differenece here is that the parties play hardball to suit their own causes. My chief objective in playing hardball is to topple the stalemated two party system and and get somewhat away from harball and more towards the compromise and concensus building which becomes necessary in trilateral and higher politics.

Think of it as using the current voting system to vote in a new voting system.

As for signature counts, those who lack enough signatures to get on the ballot rarely have enough public support to win an election anyway, so it's largely a symbolic complaint.

Nonsense in my opinion. If the candidates of the two major parties had to meet the standards that independents did, we would often see elections where one or both of the major parties was not represented. It is not simply that others should be allowed to run, but that Republicans and Democrats are granted a special right to run which they have no claim to.

The system needs to be uniform. My gut reaction is to lower the signiture count (which is ten times higher for independents than for the parties) but requiring the Republicans and Democrats to meet the same high standards as the independents would be just as well.

I feel like my main point may have somehow become secondary to my discussion of tactics. What I consider paramount is that Americans deserve a broader range of choices for a more responsive government.
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