Californians have been tolerant when they have voted on whether or not to expand voting rights.

In 1911, California's male voters voted to permit women to vote, while most other states said "No" to women's suffrage. Male voters in Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wisconsin all voted against women's suffrage between 1906 and 1915.

In November 1974, California voters amended the state Constitution to permit ex-felons to vote. Proposition Ten, the "Right to Vote" proposition, also granted the right to vote to mentally ill persons. It passed in 52 of California's 58 counties.

In March 2002, the voters approved Proposition 43, wh! ich added language to the State Constitution that all valid votes should be counted. It passed in every county.

Rolling back rights

In our next election, on Nov. 2, we will be asked if we want to roll back voting rights. The "Voter's Choice Open Primary" initiative will ask whether we want to remove minor party candidates from general election ballots for congressional and state offices. California's minor parties are cautiously optimistic that the voters will not take this exclusionary step.

The initiative says that all candidates for Congress and for state office will run on a single primary ballot in March. The only candidates who could possibly appear on the Nove! mber ball ot would be the two highest vote-getters from the March primary.

California used a unified primary ballot -- that is, a single primary ballot that contained all candidates from all parties -- in 1998 and 2000. Also, California has used that type of primary in all special elections since 1967.

In all those elections, the top vote-getter from each party advanced to the November election, so the system in those past elections did not keep minor party members off the November ballot. But because the primary used in 1998 and 2000, and in special elections, is the same as the primary proposed by the new initiative, one can use the results from those years to predict what will happen if the initiative takes effect.

In all 408 e! lections in which this type of primary was used, only Democrats or Republicans ever placed first or second -- except in 12 obvious cases when only one major party member was running). Even Audie Bock, who really was elected to the Legislature in 1999 as a Green, did not place first or second in her primary. These 408 examples demonstrate that the Voter Choice Open Primary would, in reality, leave Californians with only Democrats and Republicans to vote for in November.

How about independents?

California has more than 600,000 registered minor party members, and the Voter Choice Open Primary would leave them with no members of their own party to vote for in November.

! Independe nt candidates would likewise be excluded from the November ballot. Under the rules for special elections held in California starting in 1967, independent candidates appear on the special election primary ballot. Not once has any independent candidate ever place first or second. This has not kept independent candidates off the ballot in special run-off elections, because current law says that all independent candidates who run in these elections automatically advance to the run-off.

Under the proposed initiative, only the top two candidates can appear on the November ballot, so, based on California's historical experience, all independent candidates would likewise be excluded from the November ballot.

New ideas

Some voters may feel that it doesn't matter if minor party or independent candidates are on the ballot in November or not. Minor parties seldom win partisan elections. However, minor party campaigns for office have always been a method by which new political ideas were introduced to the electorate, and their voter appeal tested. Ideas that attracted substantial support, over time, then came to be accepted by the major parties.

The Liberty Party, in 1840, was the first political party to advocate that slavery be abolished. The idea was so controversial at the time, Liberty Party candidates were sometimes stopped by mob action from speaking. However, as support for the Liberty Party grew, so did support for its principles, until a new major party was formed to stop the spread of slavery into the territories. That new party, the Republican Party, d! isplaced one of the older major parties when it elected Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

Other ideas that were first popularized by minor parties were women's suffrage, direct election of U.S. senators, workers' compensation, anti-trust legislation, restrictions on child labor, recognition of collective bargaining and social security.

Defenders of the initiative say that minor party and independent candidates will be free to campaign in January and February of election years, since they will be on the March primary ballot. But voters nationally elect a new House of Representatives every two years in November elections. Both the major parties and the minor parties carry on nationwide generic campaigns for their congressional candidates. In recognition of this reality, Congress in 1872 passed a law, telling the states that t! hey all m ust hold their congressional elections in November of even-numbered years.

The Choice Open Primary violates the spirit, if not the letter, of this law, by forcing minor parties in California to restrict their congressional campaigns to a period of time far from the autumn campaign season.

Jesse Ventura, Reform Party candidate for governor of Minnesota, only polled 3 percent of the vote in Minnesota's open primary in September 1998. But then he received public funding, was able to afford TV advertising and went on to win in November. Under the Voter Choice Open Primary, he couldn't have been on the November ballot. But because he was, turnout in Minnesota rose to 60 percent. No other state in a recent midterm election has had that good a turnout.

Please, vote against the Voter Choice Open Primary in November.

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Winger, an expert on third-party and independent-candidate access to the U.S. ballot, is editor and publisher of Ballot Access News. He also serves on the Board of The Election Law Journal.


Wednesday, April 21, 2004	editor@sddt.com	http://www.sddt.com	Source Code: 20040421tzc