By: Robert B. Winn

Robert B. Winn — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:14:34 +0000

If the Illinois requirements were un-Constitutional, then Arizona requirements are also, but courts here have ruled consistently against independent voters.
Federal District Court used the argument that since a Democratic frontrunner who dropped out of the Arizona governor race in 1986 and later re-entered it as an independent candidate, using the organization of faction he had generated as a party candidate and his status as a multi-millionaire to pay petition circulators to obtain the 10,000 signature requirement, Arizona signature requirements were fair because a candidate had met them.
Present Illinois law seems to be a contrast with election laws in Illinois when Abraham Lincoln ran for office there. Lincoln ran for office on nothing more than his popularity as a person, since he never had any great amount of wealth in his life. Lincoln’s campaign for the Presidency was financed by $600, all collected and spent at the Republican convention for whiskey and cigars by one of Lincoln’s cousins.
Independent voters seem to see themselves as a political party that supports billionaires for public office since ordinary people cannot meet the un-Constitutional ballot access requirements that political parties have put in their way.
The remedy for un-Constitutional ballot requirements is independent candidates who register as candidates with their state governments, solicit no contributions, make no expenditures, pay no bribes to the news media, and who point out that people who engage in dishonesty while seeking public office are not likely to suddenly become honest when they are elected.
The news media is pretty much the cause of un-Constitutional ballot access requirements and has been since 1800, when a political party took over the government. Independent voters who support independent candidates just because they are wealthy are really nothing more than people who are trying to turn independence into another political party. Perhaps that is why they often refer to themselves as a “third party”, as though being in a political party was something to be desired.
Robert B. Winn

Comments on: Illinois Legislature Likely to Pass Timid Ballot Access Bill

By: Robert B. Winn