Congressional Ballot Access Bill is HR 3600
September 20th, 2007Congressman Ron Paul’s bill to outlaw restrictive ballot access for independent candidates for the US House, and for the US House nominees of unqualified parties, is HR 3600. It sets a ceiling of 1,000 signatures. The bill does not include US Senate candidates or presidential candidates.
There is more need for ballot access reform for US House, than for the other federal offices. The state ballot access laws for US House are so bad, no independent candidate for that office has qualified under Georgia’s existing law since 1964, and no minor party candidate has qualified in a regularly-scheduled election since 1942. Also, North Carolina has never had an independent candidate for US House on its ballot, and South Carolina has never had an independent candidate for US House on its ballot.
The South Carolina historical record might easily confuse anyone, because in the past an Independent Party was on the ballot in South Carolina. When one looks at old election returns for South Carolina, one needs to know that the South Carolina term for “independent candidate” is “candidate nominated by petition.”
Other states with extremely severe ballot access requirements for independents for U.S. House are California and Illinois.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Why need any signatures at all? The ballot access rules should be the same for the D’s, R’s, L’s, G’s and anyone else, period.
September 20th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Why not just have non-partisan elections, whereby everyone qualifies the same way and ALL candidates are on the same ballot, it is used & works at the Municipal level in alot of places.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Has any other representative shown support for this proposal? In fact, do we have any other ballot-access reformers in federal office at the moment?
September 21st, 2007 at 11:27 am
I applaud Ron Paul’s concern for including everyone in access (I plan to vote for Ron Paul for a number of reasons), but I have to ask why we need ballot access reform at all.
Don’t we have a Write-In selection on every ballot? Any potential candidate can run for office without a single signature of approval or raised dollar.
If that candidate’s name is written into the Write-In and he or she is in the majority, then that’s who the people want and that is the winner of the election…period.
We need to start becoming more aware of the existence and usage of the Write-In. We don’t need legislation, approval, countless signatures, millions of dollars, or any of the other bullshit associated with getting independents in office. We have the power right now with the Write-In. We need to start using the power we already have.
September 21st, 2007 at 11:46 am
By the way, I’m fully aware of the regulations that exist in several states, as well as the fact that at least 6 states don’t allow Write-Ins.
My point is that the more We the People (as opposed to We the Sheeple) simply do it anyway, the more our government will have to take notice and begin the steps toward enacting what the people want.
Remember who is supposed to control who.
October 21st, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Without strong protection for the right to vote and the right to be a candidate, what ‘we (the people) think or feel does not matter too much.
Yes, a write-in campaign is possible (in several states), but it is rarely pratical.
Aside from issues dealing with correct spelling, their is (IMHO) a problem with harsh ballot access laws.