[EL] it's all relative (comparing ballot access in pres primaries, and genl election)

[Richard Winger]

Jeff Hauser is right to say that it is burdensome on major party presidential candidates to line up slates of delegates in the waning months of the odd year before a presidential election.

But look at what certain states require of minor parties in odd years before the presidential election:  (1) California says a newly-qualifying party must get either 103,004 people to fill out a new voter registration form, and write in the name of that party in a tiny blank line on the form; or (2) California says if a group doesn't want to do that, it must submit 1,030,040 valid signatures on a petition by September of the odd year before the election.  That deadline is not in the code by Secretary of State decreed it last year; (3) Maine says a newly-qualifying party must submit a petition signed by 5% of the last gubernatorial vote, due in December of the year before the election, and no one who is a registered Republican or Democrat or Green may sign that petition; (4) Maine also says the group must first file those signatures with town clerks, hope the town clerks quickly validate the signatures, and then recover them physically and take them to
 the Secretary of State; (5) Texas says a newly-qualifying party is supposed to have its potential nominees for all partisan office except President file a declaration of candidacy on January 2, even if the party has just barely come into existence; (6) Ohio statute law says a party must submit a petition signed by 1% of the last gubernatorial vote by November of the year before the election (although that law has been declared unconstitutional, it hasn't been replaced with a new law).

Richard Winger

415-922-9779

PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
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