{news} U.S.Coalition for free and open elections report_ CT's bad election "reforms" mentioned

Mon Jun 25 13:32:06 EDT 2007

Phil Huckelberry <phil.huckelberry at gmail.com> wrote:  Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 23:37:20 -0500
To: bac at gp-us.org,natlcomvotes at green.gpus.org
From: Phil Huckelberry <phil.huckelberry at gmail.com>
Subject: [usgp-nc] COFOE Meeting Report

On Saturday, June 16, I attended the annual meeting of COFOE (Coalition for 
Free and Open Elections) on behalf of GPUS. The meeting was held at a law 
office in midtown Manhattan and lasted about four hours.

The COFOE board consists of a representative from several parties, 
including the Green Party, Libertarian Party, Constitution Party, and 
Socialist Party. At this meeting there were also representatives from the 
Working Families Party and Unity08. Most of the raw work of the 
organization is done by Richard Winger, who doubles as the representative 
of the Libertarian Party. COFOE is closely related to Ballot Access News 
(see www.ballot-access.org).

The COFOE board doesn't conduct a lot of business - therefore a need to 
meet for only four hours a year - and what substantial business is 
conducted usually involves using COFOE funds to help support ballot access 
lawsuits. Often these suits are brought by independent candidates and are 
encouraged up front by Richard Winger to go after particularly onerous laws.

A recent example demonstrates this well. A lawsuit in Illinois, Lee v. 
Keith, challenged the Illinois law regarding signature requirements for 
independent candidates for state legislature. The suit was lost at the 
lowest level but won on appeal, and the result is that Illinois is forced 
to amend the relevant statutes. A bill was actually introduced that would 
have not only fixed this problem but also lowered ballot access across the 
board, and the bill even passed the Illinois Senate unanimously, but was 
scuttled in the Illinois House. Since the suit was won, the $1,000 COFOE 
put up to help cover attorney fees will eventually be returned to the 
organization.

One other COFOE suit was won in the last year. The Ohio law governing the 
number of signatures a political party needed was ruled unconstitutional, 
leading to a rule from the Secretary of State essentially cutting the 
number in half. Since this took place at the federal level, and Tennessee 
is in the same circuit, a comparable Tennessee law will almost certainly be 
found unconstitutional as well.

One outstanding suit COFOE has regards the signature requirements for 
independent candidates for US House in North Carolina. This has yet to go 
to trial.

In 2006, COFOE approved $500 to help offset the costs of one of the ballot 
access suits in Pennsylvania. That suit lost but is currently on appeal, 
and this year, COFOE approved $750 for the cost of publication of an amicus 
brief to help with the case. The suit is Rogers v. Cortes; the original 
lead plaintiffs were the Green Party and Constitution Party in 
Pennsylvania, and the Rogers referenced in the name of the case is Marakay 
Rogers, former GPPA chair and Green candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania 
in 2006.

COFOE also approved three resolutions this year. One resolution put COFOE 
on record as insisting that any public financing legislation should not 
discriminate against candidates based on their partisan affiliation or lack 
thereof. Such legislation was passed recently in Connecticut, is being 
considered in California, and is also being considered in the form of a 
federal bill called "Fair Elections Now Act" which sets significantly 
higher bars for qualification for most third party and indepenent 
candidates. It is worth noting that the Libertarian and Constitution 
Parties are in general opposed to public financing and the Green Party of 
course supports it, so the common ground here had to be drawn in a very 
specific manner.

A second resolution involved fusion. This was the most discussed item, in 
part because a representative from the Working Families Party was 
present. I expressed that while GPUS does not have a formal position on 
fusion, to the extent that there is sentiment within the Green Party, that 
sentiment is mostly anti-fusion. The Libertarian Party is essentially 
pro-fusion and the Constitution Party has no strong position but is 
generally supportive. Eventually, the way in which the resolution was 
worded expressed support for the basic concept that a political party 
should have the right to nominate whichever candidate it wishes to 
nominate. Had the resolution gone so far as to endorse fusion per se 
instead of just the general principle, I would have abstained, but as 
written, a statement affirming a political party's right was something that 
I considered very much in line with the key value of Grassroots Democracy.

The third resolution involved the status of American citizens residing in 
U.S. territories (not including the District of Columbia). In short, a 
U.S. citizen residing in any state who moves overseas retains the ability 
to cast votes in presidential elections by voting as a de facto resident of 
the last state in which he or she resided; but such a citizen does *not* 
retain that right if he or she resides in Puerto Rico, Guam, or another 
U.S. territory. A recent case which the Supreme Court did not hear 
involved a U.S. Magistrate sent to serve in the U.S. Virgin Islands. After 
some discussion, the resolution put COFOE on record as generally supporting 
the rights of all U.S. citizens to vote for president and/or presidential 
electors regardless of residence status in a U.S. territory.

The most productive aspects of COFOE meetings, in my opinion, are the 
camaraderie and institutional memory that the participants are able to 
enjoy. When a meeting of less than 10 people involves people from all 
across the political spectrum, it might be expected that the group would be 
acrimonious, but nothing could be further from the truth. There is a broad 
understanding among participants that the fight for real democracy is 
something that everyone outside of the duopoly shares, and we can set aside 
our vast differences to focus on the critical work where we share similar 
visions: opening up the democratic process, ending discrimination based on 
partisan affiliation or lack thereof, and a great deal more.

Above and beyond the meeting itself, the critical importance of being able 
to establish personal rapport with Richard Winger can not be 
overstated. Richard is the nation's leading authority on third party 
ballot access and his assistance has been indispensible to the Green Party 
and to other third parties as well. Our ability to work well with him and 
to utilize his expertise is critical as a building block for the 
development of our own ballot access strategies.

Respectfully submitted,
Phil Huckelberry
Co-Chair, GPUS Ballot Access Committee

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  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Tim McKee cell (860) 778-1304 or (860) 643-2282
   National Committee Member of the Green Party(Connecticut)

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