While the key to getting elected is winning more votes than any of your opponents, this might actually be the easiest step in the campaign process.
The first step for a successful election is getting your name on the ballot, yet many candidates can't even get this far.
Illinois election law mandates that Presidential candidates from an established party (i.e. Democrats and Republicans) must have at least 3,000 registered voters sign petitions in order to get their name on the February 5th Primary ballot. They need names this week.
If a candidate fails to meet this minimum standard, the name can be eliminated from the final ballot. No name, no chance.
Because many of the people who sign these petitions are not actually registered to vote, a well-organized campaign will often get triple the number of needed signatures to survive a potential legal challenge.
But, for candidates from third parties, this is virtually impossible.
Illinois election law requires that Presidential candidates representing "new parties" get
25,000 signatures from registered voters. Most third party candidates have difficulty meeting this minimum standard much less getting enough signatures to survive any legal challenges.
This might not seem fair to prospective independents, and nobody in Springfield–where these laws were written–would argue with you. The Democrats and Republicans who wrote these election laws are products of a two-party system and intend to preserve it.
They would tell any prospective independents to simply pick one of our "established parties" … and be sure you get enough signatures on those petitions.
VIDEO: CBS 2 School: Candidates File Their Petitions
9 comments:
In order to have a proper democracy, we can only allow two people to run for election. What if the people voting want to elect a communist or a libertarian? The people do not know what is best for them, so the republicans and the democrats have to filter out all the people who should not be president. This can easily be displayed through a simple analogy: Coke-Cola and Pepsi are the two main soda producers, and realistically there are no other big soda producers. If a new company was to produce a high quality, low cost, soda, this would need to be stopped (even if it was more expensive and higher cost it would need to be stopped). This new company would be interfering on the oligopoly known as Coke-Cola and Pepsi. The same goes for the third party candidates: the republicans and the democrats have a bi-opoly over politics, and therefore, they cannot let anyone impede on it. A democracy only works if only .0000000066% of the population is allowed to run for president. The petition that third parities have to fill out is just one of the ways that competition is eliminated, and the potential people to run for president is diminished.
steven colbert should challenge the constitutionality of the law requiring the 25,000 (x3 to avoid legal issues) required signatures to be on the ballot. i think it's ridiculous and it hinders the true democracy of allowing the people to choose whoever they want (as long as they meet the >35, 14 years in america, and native born)to be president. at the start of the century (the 1912 election if my memory serves me correctly), eugene debs ran for president from jail as a member of the socialist party and received a little under 1 million votes. under the current restrictions, i doubt that he would have been able to receive that many votes in the first place. america is too geared into the current political system. there is no room for change and that's leading to corruption (bush's presidency)and gridlock (congress). the election process needs to be reformed so that there are more fresh ideas circulating into the political system. in the past, parties like the populists have impacted policies by bringing forward specific issues that the democratic party embraced in the 1892 election. nevertheless, i think serious reform needs to happen to allow more ideas to flow into washington.
As much as I would like to see Steven Colbert carry this election, I am a firm believer in the two-party system. If our political system is broken up in to a large number of parties, the number of voters that constitutes a majority will be smaller, and whichever party ends up winning will most likely represent a small portion of the population. Keeping a two party system means we will have a relatively conservative party and a relatively liberal party. Whoever wins, they will end up appealing to the interests of at least half of the population. The political spectrum has two sides, two sides, two parties.
I agree that there needs to be limits as to who gets to be put on the ballot. But I don't see why the same rules that apply to the Democrats and Republicans don't apply to third parties. The institutional practices that directly limit the abilities of third parties are absurd. They hinder the democratic process. I understand the benefits of the two party system, and I'm not against it. But I think that it's simply undemocratic and frankly unfair for third parties to have to abide by a different set of rules. Third parties have played a significant role in politics in the past, even if they didn't necessarily win any elections. In order for these parties and the ideals they represent to affect public policy, they need to pose a legitimate threat in politics. But right now the deck is stacked unfairly against them.
Third Parties tend to have some pretty extreme views, and that gives most people (including me) the creeps. Having said that, I think it's unfair for third parties that they need so many signatures, although there should be some prerequisite to ensure that the only people who appear on the ballot are those who are serious about running for President. I would like to see, say, a flat requirement of 3,000 signatures per state to run for President. That seems reasonable for third parties, certainly big ones like the Libertarians and the Greens, and it still strains out the people who aren't necessarily serious about running.
Saying the political spectrum is two-sided is like saying the color spectrum is only red and blue. And people have pointed out that both parties are becoming too similar to really enact any change. I'd like to see more third-party action - they would help focus national attention on otherwise-ignored issues. And it might encourage greater political participation by creating more debate and a wider range of representation.
As much as I would like to write about fairness and how the third parties need a chance, I mostly agree with Will. It seems like half the population doesn't know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat. Add in extremist third parties and we could very well end up with far too many extreme nominees for comfort. If only kids in AP Gov got to vote, then by all means let any candidates in. But most Americans do not care enough about politics to have more than two parties. That being said, I don't understand why all groups don't have the 25,000 requirement. This would regulate extremist parties and Republicans and Democrats should have few problems getting enough support.
Will & Jean, you are two true elitists -- much like the Founding Fathers themselves. But in this case, I don't think Madison would be in favor of the rigged system you support.
As I will point out in class, there is already an insurmontable institutional barrier to a third-party presidential candidacy, the Electoal College. This hurdle is Constitutionally legitimate.
Forcing third parties to play by a different, and more difficult set of rules, seems to challenge our claim of government by "rule of law."
Have any of you ever read Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein? In it, suffrage belongs only to those willing to serve their society by two years of volunteer Federal . He saw flaws in the US's system because "people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted... and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears." it's a pretty interesting book. it says some really controversial thing that'll make you think about our government a little differently. i'm not saying i agree w/ everything he said in it. it has a lot of political implications in it that will make you think though.
i found a contest where you can design a bumper sticker for politics and win like up to $500: http://www.brickfish.com/politics/PsPrint?=cs_fastpsprint yay politics. yay money.
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