Why have the Democrats as well as the Republicans restricted ballot access at all levels of US politics?
***** Breaking News: March 27, 2004 Anti-minor party initiative qualifies for California ballot
An initiative that would keep minor party and independent candidates off the California general election ballot appears to have qualified for the November 2004 ballot. Misnamed the "voter choice open primary", it would require a unitary primary ballot in March, that all voters would receive. All candidates of all parties, and even independent candidates, would appear on this ballot. Only the top two vote-getters could then appear on the November ballot.
The San Francisco Chronicle of March 27 made the initiative its headline story <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/03/27/MNGOF5SE2G1.DTL>. The story reveals that the initiative is being financed by large financial corporations and very wealthy individuals. The Chronicle story did not mention the negative impact the initiative would have on minor party and independent candidates.
News: March 22, 2004 Dirty Tricks in San Francisco
On March 15, the San Francisco Elections Director telephoned Green congressional candidate Terry Baum <http://www.terrybaum.com/> and told her that she had qualified for the November 2004 ballot (see story below). However, on March 22, the same Elections Director telephoned Terry Baum again and said she was not on the ballot after all. He has now decided that voters who wrote her in on the Green primary ballot, but whom did not complete the arrow, should not have their votes counted.
News: March 16, 2004 First California minor party qualification by write-in since 1968.
On March 15, San Francisco Elections officials announced that the Green Party had successfully nominated a candidate for the US House of Representatives in the 8th district. The Green nominee is Terry Baum, who will now appear on the November 2004 ballot as the Green candidate against Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democratic Party in the House.
Terry Baum had not been permitted to have her name printed on the Green Party primary ballot. Therefore, the only way she could be nominated was with write-in votes. California state law requires write-in candidates in partisan primaries to poll a number of write-ins votes equal to 1% of the vote for that office in the last general election.
The California restriction is very severe for minor parties, since only members of minor parties can vote in their primaries. In order for Terry Baum to receive 1,605 valid write-in votes, she had to receive a write-in for slightly more than 10% of all the registered Greens in the district. She succeeded, polling 1,651. She is the first minor party nominee to be nominated by write-ins in California since 1968.
The reason she couldn't have her name on the Green primary ballot this year was that she had been an enrolled Democrat in early 2003. California law won't let people place their names on the primary ballot of any party, if they were members of any other party during the year before filing.
<http://www.ballot-access.org/> ***** -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>