The minor parties and independent candidates are required to gather 25,000 signatures. (Which is really 50,000, since the signatures will be challenged, and few voters carry their ID cards with them, and many give outdated addresses. So, when challenged on technicalities, the corrupt bureaucrats at the state department will invalidate many of them.)
The major parties have all the benefits of incumbency, and can circulate the petitions at union halls, where workers sign them out of fear of losing their jobs.
All these idiots jibbering about how the Koch brothers are “buying elections” then look the other way, when it’s their precious “Democrats” (against democratic elections) who are preventing competition at the ballot box in a far more heinous and unfair way. Of course, the Republicans are exactly the same, and regularly do their best to knock their competition off the ballot.
So the Democrats are worse than the Koch brothers but “the Republicans are exactly the same” as the Democrats? Aren’t the Koch brothers Republicans helping the Republican Party? So you’re saying that the Koch brothers are actually worse than themselves, somehow? I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
That bolded bit has been related to me by thousands of union-member Democrats. Also, the patronage system sends such workers door-to-door for Democrats, and in exchange, they get to keep their jobs and get perks. Everybody knows this. This is the way Chicago’s patronage system works. It is common knowledge. Here is one example: http://mobstersinthenews.blogspot.com/2014/05/colorful-past-for-insider-at-center-of.html
Also: It’s a long story. I wasn’t defending David Koch’s support for the Republicans (they suck, too), I was just pointing out that the Democrats are worse on democracy than the Koch brothers. If you read Charles Koch’s book, it’s enlightened and libertarian, which is why he doesn’t waste money on elections as much as David does. Instead he funds think tanks like Cato and Reason Foundation.
No, dipshit, I’m saying “The Koch Brothers” =/= “The Republican Party.” In fact, I think that since David walked out of the Libertarian Party in 1984, he should have just not bothered to waste his time on politics.
I’m also saying that the Democrats in IL have had total control of the state for years, and are the worst enemies a democratic election ever had. They could have changed the laws to make the laws the same for major and minor parties, and independents, but they never did. Why? Because they oppose democratic elections, and equal access to the ballot, in spite of any rhetoric to the contrary.
Again: Everyone with any common sense knows this.
Sorry, I don’t send it out to clueless Obamatons or Jeb-Bush-supporting mongoloids. Crack a basic book on economics and talk to me in a few years.
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For what it’s worth, if you take out the partisan attacks, the OP has a legitimate point. New York has similar laws: a combination of ridiculously high entrance standards with a grandfather clause that allows the big parties to bypass the standards they enacted. While I’m not a fan of third parties, I disagree with the idea of suppressing them like this. There should be a single standard that all parties have to go through to get candidates on the ballet.
Third parties can also stand as a way to spotlight an issue or to show that ideas not recognised by the main parties are still garnering some support even if they can’t win. And, of course, sometimes a third party can win.
Here, to get on the ballot for a parliamentary election you just put down a £500 deposit, which you get back if you get 5% of the total vote.
Personally, I’m not a fan of any official recognition of political parties by the government. Oh, sure, they’re going to exist, since like-minded people will try to get each other elected… But that’s none of the government’s business.
There are dozens of squirrelly parties without a prayer of getting their candidates elected to any given office. To require 25,000 sigs before you get your first guy slotted in doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. In practice I’ve seen very little spotlighting of issues conducted by third parties: it’s more of a vanity exercise.
Fun fact: David Koch was the Libertarian nominee for Vice President of the US in 1980. He bankrolled a multi-million dollar air campaign for the ticket.
Just for clarification, the 25,000 number applies only to state-wide offices (including U.S. Senate seats). Requirements for US House seats and Illinois general assembly seats are much lower.
Also, assuming you can get at least 5% of the vote in the general election, the 25,000 number is a one time event. For as long as a party gets 5% of the vote in the general election, they maintain ballot access.
But as in Illinois, there’s an exemption for any party which got fifty thousand votes in the last election. This allows the established parties to enact rules they know they won’t have to follow.
Elections are not always about getting elected though. A party or candidate may also stand as an attempt to influence another candidate. Here in the UK UKIP has done exactly that until recently. Such a situation can also stifle the future growth of a Party/candidate. Parties sometimes have to start at the bottom.
I know in France the Front National has had difficulties in this area of electoral signatures. Look at them now.
can circulate the petitions at union halls, where workers sign them out of fear of losing their jobs.
Lol, boy, I bet you’ve never belonged to a union. No one, and I mean NO one TELLS us who to vote for. The union leadership will say who they indorse. That’s it. If they tried to force us to vote a certain way we would tell them to stick their head up where the sun don’t shine.
Arguably, ballot fusion is just a means used by the big two parties to marginalize the third parties. It pressures the third parties into tacitly endorsing the Democratic or Republican nominee in order to have a better chance at maintaining ballot access.
For what it’s worth, it looks like the possibility of the WFP running a different candidate really scared Cuomo. Now Cuomo is a worthless opportunist, so I don’t expect the deal they cut to actually be followed, but it did seem to possibly get some results.
Connecting the Koch’s to Libertartianism, even capitalized, does not do justice to their extremism. Their father was a founder of The John Birch Society (though he acquired much wealth helping the Soviet Union) and a white supremacist.
Please watch Greenwald’s new documentary Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition. It’s a real shame how evil these brothers are, and how much damage they’re doing to America … yet many people haven’t even heard of them. BTW, Bill and Melinda Gates are not the richest American couple – the Koch brothers are.