Ballot Access News has just learned that Ted Weill died on November 20, 2009, age 84. He was the 2008 presidential nominee of the Reform Party, although he only appeared on the ballot of his home state of Mississippi. He had been a leader of the Reform Party in Mississippi ever since the party had been formed in 1995. He was survived by six children, 14 grandchildren, and 9 great-grandchildren.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Kansas ?????????
Louisiana ?????????????
[Inspite of my long distance efforts
to keep him and his ‘nutter’ vice presidential
wing man off of the ballots after the media
circus of the Dallas [Texas] court ordered
‘national convention’]
I am usually ‘more candidates, more democracy’
but have felt Patrick [and lying cheating sister
Bay] Buchanan (P2000) and Weill (P2008) were the
exceptions that prove the rule ……..
He wasn’t on in Louisiana because the party was late to turn in its paperwork for presidential electors. He wasn’t on in Kansas because the Kansas Reform Party decided to nominate Chuck Baldwin for president.
Mr. Weill was a 2004 Reform Party USA Presidential nominee. He was able to share that year’s presidential nomination with Ralph Nader. He was only on the ballot in Mississippi for the 1984 presidential General Election. He chose me to assist him in that race as the campaign manager.
Mr. Weill, a business entrepreneur, was a tall figure in Miss. and in national Reform Party USA politics; he was a dignified, loyal member we went to for finding presidential candidacies.
Ted Weill wasn’t on any November 2004 ballot as a presidential candidate. In 2004 in Mississippi, Ralph Nader was listed as the Reform Party nominee for president. I just looked at my Mississippi November 2004 ballot to be certain.
The only time Mr. Weill ran for any public office on the Reform Party ticket (other than for President in 2008) was in 1996, when he was the party’s nominee for U.S. Senate. He got 1.58% for U.S. Senate in 1996.
Ted Weill was the Chairman of the Independence Party of MS coming out of the 1992 Elections and represented MS at the Founding National Convention of the Patriot Party in 1994 in Alexandria, VA. He placed the Independence Party name in nomination at that convention and it finished second to the Patriot Party name, mainly because “Independence” was not available as a party name in all states. Ted will be sorely missed.
Tom McLaughlin says that the name “…Independence was not available as a party name in all states.” I knew that some Secetary of States’ over the years had objected to the name “Independent” as a party name because of the “independent” voter label, but am curious as to what states refuse to accept “Independence” as a party name? Perhaps Richard can enlighten us.
When Ross Perot decided to form a new party in the early autumn of 1995, he was going to call it the Independence Party. Ohio and California had the earliest deadlines for new parties. Both states told him they wouldn’t permit a party with that name. Probably he could have persevered and called their bluff, but instead he settled on the name Reform Party, which was borrowed, in a sense, from a Canadian party that was strong at the time, even though it wasn’t one of the two major parties of Canada. Later the Reform Party of Canada merged in with the Conservative Party of Canada.
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I had a chance to meeet, talk, and actually eat a great meal with Ted Weil in July of 2008. He was a great man who was rather inspirational. I wish he would have been able to get a bigger slate to run for presidency, because I feel like he would have won some people over into the Reform Party.
He did some great things with Mississippi and allowed for the Reform Party to be well established there too. He will be missed by a lot of people involved with Miss. politics, the Reform Party, and third parties in general.
I hope that the Mississippi Reform Party will be able to come out of this strong.