Today's one-liner: "The shortest way to the distinguishing excellence of any writer is through his hostile critics." Richard LeGallienne
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Saturday, August 21, 2010
Voters Should Decide Elections, Not Judges
Chris Casey has an interesting story about Carl Stevenson, an independent candidate who wanted to challenge State Rep. Doug Reichley. Apparently, Stevenson used the Manchurian candidate, Jake Towne, to circulate his nomination papers. Although Towne is a nonresident, Stevenson claims to have an email from the state elections office telling him he could use Towne anyway. If that's true, and I'd have to see the email to know for sure, it's incredible that a candidate would be thrown off the ballot for following instructions from the state elections office.
8 comments:
You own views are appreciated, especially if they differ from mine. But remember, commenting is a privilege, not a right. I will delete personal attacks or off-topic remarks at my discretion. Comments that play into the tribalism that has consumed this nation will be declined. So will comments alleging voter fraud unless backed up by concrete evidence. If you attack someone personally, I expect you to identify yourself. I will delete criticisms of my comment policy, vulgarities, cut-and-paste jobs from other sources and any suggestion of violence towards anyone. I will also delete sweeping generalizations about mainstream parties or ideologies, i.e. identity politics. My decisions on these matters are made on a case by case basis, and may be affected by my mood that day, my access to the blog at the time the comment was made or other information that isn’t readily apparent.
By chance, I am currently reading one book of a multi-volume biograhpy on Jefferson. From today's reading a quote from discussing the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801 seems somewhat applicable:
ReplyDelete"The judicial branch of the government was the least susceptible to democratization...."
But that is another story. The real problem to this specific post is that state legislatures are made up of the two parties, and so the system is "rigged" to reinforce that two-party system. PA in particular makes it very difficult for "third party"/ "independent" candidates to get on the ballot because of how the rules regulating the number of signatures are written (as alluded to by the note of Stevenson needing almost twice as many signatures as Reichley).
However, even if PA made it easier to get on the ballot, "third party" candidates will always be relegated to the role of "spoiler" so long as we have single-member districts with winner-take-all elections. Based on plurality, rather than proportional, results these minor candidates typically do nothing but take away votes from one or the other party. That's why BOTH parties will challenge candidates' petitions deemed threatening (and--of course--defend third party attempts deemed a threat to their opponent !). That's why Dent and Reichley are afraid of the Townes and Stevensons, and why the referenced Green Party case from 2002. Even in presidential Electoral College results like 1992 (Perot), 2000 (Nader), or if you like history 1912 (Bull Moose TR) the same practice rules. So long as we have single-member districts with plurality winners, votes for the Townes, Naders, etc, are protest votes of principal.
Personally, thats why I think the "Tea Party" has the GOP mainstream neo-con establishment concerned. Numerically the GOP already is the minority party per registered voters, and if a noticeable segment of the "base" gets tired of the lip service and starts looking at "independents"....Nader-like results for the major party.
Lighthouse (and others who have posted elsewhere) complains about the unreasonableness of the number of petition signatures required for an independent candidate. While the requirement for independent candidates might seem onerous compared to that for the major parties, I view that as an apples and oranges comparison. First, the signature requirements for the major party candidates are to place their names on the primary ballot not the general election ballot as is the case with the signature requirements for independent candidates. Secondly, while independent candidates require more signatures, the time period to gather them is much longer. Approximately 5 months (from March 10 through August 2 this year) for someone like Jake Towne as compared to 3 weeks (from February 16 through March 9 this year) for Charlie Dent and John Callahan. In addition to the signatures required to get on the primary ballot, Dent and Callahan also received over 30,000 votes each to have their names placed on the ballot this November. Why is it not reasonable to require a third party candidate to demonstrate that he or she has a minimum level of support before their names can be placed on the general election ballot? Particularly since they have 5 months to gather the signatures.
ReplyDeleteDean Browning
Dean, good points. Additionally third party candidates can have any registered voter sign their petition while Rep & Dem must have only the party they are affiliated with sign.
ReplyDeleteGreat point, Dean.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dean's points, but I still think that Independents should only have to get the same number as the Rs and D's. If you want to change the law and have them under the same restrictions, I would live with that. Part of my problem is the violation of the spirit of elections. The people should have the opportunity to choose, not judges, or entrenched political parties. How ironic it is that political parties that love our free market economy with all the competition don't care for the idea of competition in politics unless they can control it.
ReplyDeleteHigh signature requirements don't serve the people; it serves the ruling class with has destroyed this country from the people who
ReplyDeletebuilt it!
Problem reading about history books is that they leave out the unspoken events of secret societies.
Propaganda of the front office, while the real dealing go on in the back office. Hasn't changed since day one.
Building a better mouse trap all in the order of honor and trust. lol
Lighthouse said: "...the system is riged' to rinfirce that two-party system ... However, even if PA made it easier to get on the ballot, 'third party' candidates will always be relegated to the role of 'spoiler'..."
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't HAVE to be that way, but it will continue as long as the Republicrats keep so many people thinking that way and continue to use their financial strength and perversions of the legal system to freeze out any competition.
People should be free to vote and shoud vote their principles, rather than being forced to "choose the lesser of the evils."
In my view, once you decide to choose the lesser of the evils, you have, by definition, lowered your standard to evil.
Carl Stevenson
My point, that most seem to be missing, is that systemically the system is rigged to reinforce the two party system even if you take away the petition requirements complained about. I was not defending it, only explaining, that so long as we have single member districts with plurality winner-take-all election third party/independent candidates will rarely ever have enough votes to be the top vote getter, and thus win. Because of that, the net result is they take votes away from one of the two major party candidates.
ReplyDeleteSo, if you are unhappy with your D and R choices, you either "vote for the lesser of two evils", or you vote your principle for the third party candidate knowing they will not win (but could still impact the election as a spoiler).
Because of that, movements--whether they be on the liberal, conservative, or libertaria--tend to have more impact if they can successfully exert their influence within one of the two major parties. It is more stable than multi-party systems, but change is slower.