The Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE) is a very loose coalition of most of the nation’s active nationally-organized minor parties, along with other organizations that care about their election law problems. It was founded in 1985 in New York city. The Board meets in person once per year. It met on March 14, 2015, in New York city. Here are the tentative minutes. Thanks to Kevin Murphy, COFOE’s webmaster, for posting them.
“About COFOE” page reads:
The Statement of Principles adopted by COFOE puts the issue plainly:
“Full and fair access to the electoral process is a right central to democracy.”
It was to champion this principle that a group of independents and representatives of alternative parties from across the political spectrum came together in the early ’80’s to form the Coalition for Free and Open Elections (COFOE).
COFOE supports Congressional legislation to strike down barriers to ballot access.
We’ve petitioned in the past throughout the nation for passage of Representative John Conyers’ bill, H.R. 1582, which called for a uniform Federal election law lowering signature requirements and eliminating discriminatory restrictions.
We endorsed the Universal Registration Act sponsored by Sen. Alan Cranston and Rep. Conyers to liberalize existing voter registration laws.
We support actions in the courts and various state legislatures to remove ballot restrictions.
Our field representative, noted election law authority Richard Winger, publishes Ballot Access News monthly, providing up-to-date information on developments relating to the electoral process.
We ask the support of all Americans, irrespective of political views, to join this fight for really free and democratic elections.
Members:
Committee for a United Independent Party (CUIP), Conservative Party, Constitution Party, Green Party, Libertarian Party, Reform Party, Socialist Party; Others welcome
Those…were…the…days
I was the Libertarian Representative on COFOE for 11 years when I lived in NYC, (1985-1996)