I looked into the Boston Globe article, but what it says, contrary to Jim Westrich's claim, is that Secretary of State William F. Galvin -- a Democrat -- is claiming that local officials did not receive the majority of signatures before the 5 p.m. deadline on August 3, refusing to count beyond "5,700 valid signatures," in the face of the statement of Michael Richardson, the national ballot access coordinator for the Nader/Camejo campaign, that the campaign submitted between 14,000 and 15,000 signatures to local officials in time.
Ballot access restriction is the Democratic and Republican Parties' SOP when it comes to independent and third-party candidates who are their respective competitors (though the Democrats helped Bush get on the ballots, bending election laws and regulations and helping Bush financially by giving him a late nomination date: "Illinois fixed a glitch in its election law . . . to ensure President Bush appears on the state's Nov. 2 ballots. The relatively late dates of this year's Republican Party convention, running Aug. 30 to Sept. 2, meant that Bush would not be the official nominee until after an Aug. 30 deadline set in state law. The ballot qualification issue arose in nine states, with Illinois the last to take care of it. The amendment allows candidates onto the ballot who are nominated after the deadline" [Reuters, "Illinois Fixes Glitch to Keep Bush's Spot on Ballot," July 8, 2004, <http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/nader-2004-nader-2000.html>]):
Editor of Ballot Access News, [Richard] Winger said . . . : "Since the 1890s, when ballot access laws first came into existence in the U.S., both major parties have used the ballot access laws for their own partisan advantage. . . . This year, though, partisan use of the ballot access procedures for independent candidates has been unusually active. Democrats have challenged Ralph Nader's signatures successfully in Arizona, and a Democratic challenge of Nader's petition in Illinois will probably succeed. Republicans in Michigan have completed an independent candidate petition for Nader. . . . Republican efforts to get Nader on the ballot may be selfish and hypocritical, but these efforts do enhance the ability of voters to vote freely for the candidate of their choice. On the other hand, Democratic efforts to keep Nader's name off the ballot do interfere with voting rights."
Winger added: "The Democratic Party has tried to prevent voters from voting for certain minor party and independent presidential candidates in the past. [Progressive Party candidate and former vice president] Henry Wallace was kept off the Illinois and Oklahoma ballots in 1948 through Democratic Party efforts. Eugene McCarthy was kept off the New York ballot in 1976 by a Democratic Party challenge, and the Democratic National Committee intervened in legal proceedings in 1980 to try to keep John Anderson off the Massachusetts and North Carolina ballots. . . . This type of activity is virtually unknown in other advanced democracies. In Canada, the Liberal Party might be helped if it could keep the New Democratic Party off the ballot. And in Great Britain, the Labor Party might similarly be advantaged if it could keep the Liberal Democratic Party off the ballot. But that doesn't happen in those countries; it would be considered unspeakably unethical. Ballot access in both Canada and Great Britain is very easy. Candidates for House of Commons in Britain only need 10 signatures plus a filing fee, and Canada is similar." (Institute for Public Accuracy, "Ballot Access: Restriction on Democracy?" July 20, 2004)
Those who aid and abet the Democratic Party's crime of excluding Nader from the ballots and disenfranchising working-class voters on the left are committing the same crime as those who aid and abet the disenfranchisement of working-class voters -- especially working-class Black voters -- through criminal disenfranchisement laws. After all, voting rights mean nothing if voters are allowed to vote for only the candidates pre-approved by the power elite.
The Democratic Party's attempt to restrict ballot access is especially aggressive this year. Why? Because, contrary to what Anybody But Nader intellectuals claim, Nader has been polling slightly better in 2004 than in 2000, according to Gallup: "Nader 2004 > Nader 2000": <http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/nader-2004-nader-2000.html>. Hence the all-important task of keeping Nader/Camejo off the ballots. Everyone is supposed to echo what Jim Westrich says: "I won't vote for Nader because he is NOT on the ballot." That's free election for you. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * 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/>