Sample Ballots
 

Yay! My sample ballot came in the mail! What? There's more on it than just the office of the president? Well, lets see what else there is...

From the Florida ballot:

Proposing amendments to the State Constitution to require the sponsor of a constitutional amendment proposed by citizen initiative to file the initiative petition with the Secretary of State by February 1 of the year of a general election in order to have the measure submitted to the electors for approval or rejection at the following November's general election, and to require the Florida Supreme Court to render an advisory opinion addressing the validity of an initiative petition by April 1 of the year in which the amendment is to be submitted to the electors.

After reading it once, I had to read it out loud, but ran out of breath. :dead: Get the proposer some punctuation!

We also have eight individuals listed as choices for Office of the President. Does this vary from state to state? I wasn't expecting so many this time around.

It does vary from state to state. That's why Nader and the Republicans are fighting state by state to get Nader on the ballots.

Well, we have Nader. Here's the set, including a number I've not heard of, before.

George W. Bush (REP)
John F. Kerry (DEM)
Michael A. Peroutka (CPF)
Michael Badnarik (LIB)
David Cobb (GRE)
James Harris (SWP)
Walter F. Brown (SPF)
Ralph Nader (REF)

Florida is going to be in for a real fun election count. Hoo, boy.

Wow... On my ballot this morning (in Texas) I had the choice between Kerry, Bush, Badnarik, and Write-In.

Texas ballot access requirements are amongst the worst in the country. From here:

Nice spin.

Spin? True as far as I can determine, so why spin? :confused:

Republicans don't like to be mentioned as helping Nader.

I know, HM. But why is a straight out fact, being called spin, by Griff?
Makes me wonder what the definition of spin is? I always thought it was trying to convince people that a statement or event really didn't mean what most people would think at first glance. :confused:

Is the party listing always the same, Rep first, Dem second and whoeverelse third? If they are, is there anything on whether or not the Republican set in a given election situation gets more votes because people who might not be sure in the booth simply select the first in the line? It's like a huge multiple choice question with no correct answer. It doesn't have to be a significant number of votes more to swing an election either way.

I think what he's saying is that the Ds have worked just as hard or harder to keep Nader off than the Rs have worked to get him on.

"Thank goodness the judges acted to keep some of the candidates off the ballot."
-- common theme in the USA right now

In DC:

John F Kerry (DEM)
David Cobb (DC statehood GRN)
Michael Badnarik (LIB)
James Harris (SWP)
George W. Bush (REP)
Ralph Nader (IND)
Write in

I'd disagree with "just as hard or harder", if only because it's much less work to challenge signatures than it is to collect and defend them.

Oh stop. The Rs did the hard work of paying signature gatherers at $1 a signature. The Ds did the hard work of paying their $300/hr lawyers to invalidate those signatures and play with state election laws.

Political hackery hurts America and makes baby Jesus cry.

And the Rs did the hard work of defending signatures and playing with state election laws. So, by your calculations, R: $301, D: $300

Yeah, well if so, only one side was anti-Democracy.

Good work disenfranchising the voters. Hope you don't need 'em later...

What!!! Just which side did what they did for the cause of democracy. :lol2:

The discussion took an odd turn but UT nailed what I was trying to get folks to acknowlege. Both the entrenched parties think they own the system and the votes. It is pretty much true but shouldn't be. When you oppose open democractic elections don't try to sell it as a virtue, even if (you think) your guy wears the white hat.

NPR threw the Libertarians a bone today with an exerpt from a Badnarik speech. You'd almost expect them to pump up Mike for the same reason the GOP is pimping Nader, but bread butter ya know?

Your right Griff. Virtue only exists in classroom discussions of our system of government, not in the real world. :yelgreedy

I'm actually not that familiar with the details of the lawsuits, beyond fraudulent petition signatures and canvassing practices, and that courts in Pennsylvania and Ohio have decided in favor of the Democrats. What, in particular, are you referring to?

In principle, I think the hurdle to get on the ballot should be lower, and standard throughout the country for Federal positions. But, as I understand it, Nader didn't meet the current standards, according to law, even with the help of the Republicans.

Nader didn't meet the standards in Pennsylvania just like any Pennsylvania State Trooper can look at your car and find a reason to ticket you for it. In this case they first said that Nader couldn't run as an Independent because he was nominated by the Reform Party. When that didn't work, they turned to examining every one of his 30,000 signatures and threw out enough of them to reject him (he probably needed 24,000). This happens because the ballot petitions are completely unreasonable, and your signature is rejected if you put down your mailing address instead of your polling location... something 75% of signatories generally do unless carefully watched and questionned.

In 1996 we had a whole set of petitions rejected because the notary who notarized them remembered to post them and stamp them and sign them but had forgotten to use her raised seal.

The whole process is a total fucking nightmare of potholes and bureaucracy, and both sides use this as part of the process of denying candidates access to the ballot. It is absolutely indefensible behavior by the parties. And voters know that if it looks like a fix, it probably is. You can talk all you want about how voters are systematically denied access to vote. But those of us who've had candidates denied ballot access know that's a huge fucking sham because hundreds of thousands of voters didn't even have their choice listed and that made you happy.

I never said it made me happy. In fact, I want the system to be reformed. Unfortunately, the help the Republicans were giving to Nader was not in assistance to any idea of Democracy - it was gaming the two-party system. If the Democrats didn't respond in kind, their moral victory could easily result in political failure, and that is a path they have traveled quite often. The Republican attutude is: I understand the frustration of third parties, who will rightfully say that that is the combined attitude of both D and R to any third party. But at this point in time, the Republicans are trying very hard to change a two party system into a one party system, and I consider that to be a bigger danger than the continuing difficulty of third parties to enter. Four years ago, I voted Libertarian, hoping to encourage the development of more parties. Right now, if the one party that actually has a chance to interfere with the dominant party doesn't use the legal tools at their disposal, we risk the opposite happening.

UT, I understand this is a pet peeve, but of 30k signatures, I wonder how many actually support Nader? How many were trying to help Bush? And how many went along with, “look you don’t have to support Nader but sign here and let him on the ballot”?
Fair or not, anyone who supports Nader knows full well he’s a spoiler in this election and his chances aren’t good of getting on the ballot in any election. I think his supporters are already disenfranchised. :confused:

They don't have to support Nader; our L petitioners routinely got the signatures of both the R and D opponents. All signing means is that you believe he deserves to be on the ballot.

In other states, they have a much more reasonable signature requirement (900 in NJ, I think) and they do not have anarchy... they manage it. Which is what I would expect of the Dep't of State: run the damn democratic process, as openly and freely as possible, simply without making it a mess.

OK but I doubt if the people that signed for Nader, just because "he deserves to be on the ballot", feel disenfranchised when he doesn't make it. :angel:

Another item on my sample ballot. I don't know who he is, but if he wins, I'm going to throw a massive party.

http://fox.org/~vince/out/flood.jpg

Hey, cool!!! I wanna vote for the Dwarf!