{news} HartfordAdvocate-"An Unreasonable Mandate" (CT anti-third party laws)

[Tim McKee]

An Unreasonable Mandate
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Ralph Nader, Bob Barr and Cynthia McKinney find common ground: state laws
designed to keep third parties off the ballot
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Comments (1)
Thursday, August 14, 2008
By Andy Bromage Andy Bromage photoNader's campaigners: Ralph Ferrucci and
Christina Tobin deliver petitions to Hartford, in 169 different sections.

Vic Lancia's phone rang. It was Ralph Nader asking for help gathering
signatures to get him on the presidential ballot in Connecticut.

Lancia, a loyal foot soldier for third party political campaigns, didn't
believe it was Nader. He hung up. Nader called back. Lancia still didn't
believe him. "Stop fucking with me," Lancia said, and hung up again.

So Nader called Ken Krayeske, who's running his state campaign. "What are
you doing giving me a guy who hangs up the phone on me?" Nader asked.
Krayeske made a quick phone call to explain, and before long Lancia was
outside a Middletown supermarket sweet-talking shoppers into signing for
Nader.

The Nader campaign submitted 17,000 signatures to state election
officials in Hartford last week—twice the number needed to secure a line
on the ballot this fall—but they didn't do it alone. Nader had help
petitioning from Libertarians and the Greens, who in turn got help from
Nader.

In a rare show of third party unity, the campaigns of Nader, Libertarian
Bob Barr and the Green Party's Cynthia McKinney, the last two former
Congress members, are joining forces across state lines to overcome
ballot access rules designed to keep minor party candidates out. The
camps are sharing workers, swapping petitions and urging voters to sign
up for another third party candidate along with their own. They've joined
forces in Maine, West Virginia, Hawaii, Pennsylvania and now Connecticut,
where Barr submitted 13,000 signatures and McKinney turned in "close to
the necessary number," a Green Party boss says.

Libertarian petitioners were instrumental in getting Nader on the ballot
in the all-important state of Pennsylvania last month, so Nader's team
repaid the favor in Connecticut, dispatching his clipboard-equipped
raiders on sidewalks and town greens. Not because the campaign especially
loves Bob Barr, though.

"I couldn't care less about Libertarians," says Krayeske. "The hurdles to
democracy that the two parties put out in front of you are so onerous
that third parties are learning to cooperate."

Sidewalk petitioning can be thankless work: Campaigns pay workers $1 to
$1.50 per signature to stand on baking asphalt, asking irritated grocery
shoppers to sign in support of a candidate they've often never heard of,
or might consider a "spoiler." Nader's national ballot coordinator,
Christina Tobin of Illinois, arrived in Hartford last week to turn in the
fruits of their labor.

In true Nader fashion, Tobin used the occasion to agitate rather than
celebrate, telling reporters that petitioning onto Connecticut's ballot
is a "tedious" and "ridiculous" process designed to "make our lives more
difficult." For example: State law requires petitions be certified by
local officials in Connecticut's 169 towns, even though federal law
requires states maintain a centralized list of all registered voters.

That means petitioners must carry a form for every town—Andover to
Woodstock—which the state then mails to those towns. Another law says
petitioners must be state residents, which poses a problem because the
most reliable workers are the few paid national staffers who travel from
state to state, not local volunteers. Beyond that, requiring 7,500 valid
signatures when other New England states require a fraction as many
(1,000 in Rhode Island, 3,000 in New Hampshire) disadvantages
small-dollar grassroots campaigns, Tobin says.

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, the state's top election
official, is unsympathetic. She says town officials must validate
petition signatures because only they have the original signed voter
cards. If something looks suspicious—say, several signatures in the same
handwriting—officials need to check the source documents.

On requiring circulators to be state residents, Bysiewicz says it's
perfectly reasonable. "You ought to be able to have support in the state
you're running in if you are going to have a real candidacy," Bysiewicz
says. But third party campaigns are modest endeavors, often relying on a
few dedicated staffers to do heavy lifting over huge geographic areas.
Besides, can't voters just register their support at the polls? Is luring
state residents away from their jobs to spend a full day collecting
signatures for $1 a pop the only way to demonstrate ballot-worthy
support?

Bysiewicz is unmoved. "You ought to have people in the state willing to
go out and get petition signatures."

Mike DeRosa, the state Green Party chair, disagrees. "Not everyone can
just go out and petition. Some people are too shy. The two major parties
will create all kinds of barriers to full participation in the political
process."¦

Send your comments to editor at hartfordadvocate.com


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Tim McKee, Manchester CT, main number cell-860-778-1304, 860-643-2282
 National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT.
BLOG-http://thebiggreenpicture.blogspot.com

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