Ballot Access News reports on efforts underway in Texas and Pennsylvania not to make ballot access more reasonable.
In Pennsylvania, State House member Eddie Pashinski (D-Wilkes-Barre) has agreed to introduce the Pennsylvania ballot access reform bill in next year’s legislative session. The bill already has a Senate sponsor, Mike Folmer, a Republican. The bill is modeled on Delaware’s law for minor parties.
In Texas,
Stephen (Sky) King is working diligently on getting a bill introduced in the Texas legislature to ease ballot access. He has already found both a Democrat and a Republican in the legislature who are willing to introduce the bill. He can be reached at [email protected].
The Ballot Access News ballot access chart shows that for the 2008 election, Pennsylvania required 24,866 valid signatures; that number varies from one election to another based on turnout. Additionally, Pennsylvania has the toughest standard of any state for a party to qualify as a major party – 15% of all voter registrations in the state. By comparison, Republicans have fewer than 15% of voter registrations in DC and Massachusetts, and Democrats have fewer than 15% of the voter registrations in Utah. As well, Pennsylvania has a unique system which chills competition for places on the ballot: candidates whose ballot access petitions are successfully challenged have to personally pay for the costs of the challenge.
Texas required 43,991 signatures valid to qualify a party, or 74,108 valid signatures for an independent statewide candidate in 2008. It is the only state which still invalidates the signatures of ballot access petition signers who voted in a primary, which was a particularly limiting requirement this year, since the primary contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was close and lasted late into the primary season, increasing primary turnout. Both Texas and Pennsylvania have start dates before which signatures can not be collected, unlike many other states which have no start date.
In 2007, the TX Green Party helped get some legislation introduced to remove the “petition penalty”. A good start, but the thing never got out of committee!
Thanks and good luck to them.
John Murphy and Jim Clymer, among others, were involved in drafting and finding support for the ballot access reform in PA. It was through the organization called the Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition that they did the work.