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Are you tired of voting for the lesser of two evils in the two-party system that currently dominates American politics?
Do you believe you have the right to hear all candidates seeking elected office? Do you believe that ballot access qualifications should be equal for all parties?
The State of Alabama has the toughest ballot access laws in the country. The Democrat and Republican parties are deathly afraid of new ideas from new people and they have implemented a stranglehold on the political process. By imposing almost insurmountable requirements to have your name placed on the ballot the Democrat and Republican parties are denying Alabamains access to other possible choices.
Between the beginning of government-printed ballots and 1971, Alabama let any party on the ballot, if it
held a nominating convention. No signatures were
required on any petition. It didn't matter if the
party had been on the ballot before or not.
In 1971 a law was passed requiring 5,000 signatures for new
parties, but old parties could stay on indefinitely
with no petition, no matter how weak they were.
In 1982 the legislature increased the 5,000 to 1%
of the last gubernatorial vote, and said all parties must continue to submit it unless they got 20% in the last election for at least one statewide office. And in 1995 they changed the 1% to 3%. In 2003 they made the deadline earlier.
As the law currently stands, in order to mention a party name on the ballot requires hundreds of thousands of votes (20% in a statewide race)or the gathering of 40,000 plus signatures (3% of the votes cast in the last GovernorŐs race). To merely print a party affiliation requires the unbelievable but true 20% in a statewide race or +40,000 signatures.
The only purpose of this is protecting the two party system. This is wrong. Access to the ballot is one of the cornerstones of a Democracy and a Republic. Access to the ballot should remain open to all voters and candidates.
This is a direct attack on third parties. A process that should be open to all contenders is being defined and restricted. All contenders should be respected in the political arena. The competition has no right to decide the legitimacy of its opponents. The voters should be the only ones to decide the legitimacy of candidates and political parties at the polls.
It is unconstitutional on the face of it. A political party is a group of folks that decide to run under one banner. Nothing more.
The median vote test (for printing of a political party name on the ballot) in the rest of the fifty states is 2%. No state except Alabama is above 10%.
Ballot Access Petition
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