Category: ballot access

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ballot access insider corruption partisanship

Words for Jersey Insiders

New Jersey, ballots, design, voters, partisans

Effrontery. Chutzpah. Impudence.

I’m of course talking about partisan politics.

The case at hand is covered by Matthew Petti at Reason, “Are New Jersey Voters Too Dumb for Normal Ballots?” In this April 3rd report, Petti explains that a “federal judge has ordered Democrats in New Jersey to draw up ballots fairly instead of putting their favorite candidates at the front. But state Democratic bosses think that voters can’t be trusted to figure out how to think for themselves.”

This is a dispute about ballot design. Remember the notorious “butterfly” ballots that so confused Palm Beach County, Florida voters in 2000? You know, even Pat Buchanan acknowledged that thousands in the liberal county voted for him by mistake. 

Well, this is similar, though here the case is not so much a confusing ballot but a simple ballot with favored candidates getting the easiest-to-spot slots. “All but two of the state’s counties endorse candidates for the primary and then place their endorsed candidates all in one line,” explains NPR’s Nancy Solomon. “It’s called the ‘county line’ or ‘the party line’ and it includes candidates for various positions. . . . The other candidates for the same seat are placed in what’s known as ballot Siberia – way off to the right on the ballot and all alone.”

But when the party machine tried to replace the serially indicted Senator Bob Menendez with the governor’s wife, a challenger complained. And sued. And won.

County clerks are appealing the decision — but the court still requires them to design a new ballot.

“New” . . . meaning like ballots nearly everywhere.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ballot access national politics & policies political challengers

The “We the People” Party Pooper

duopoly, two party system, third party

The only substantial challenger to the two parties, this presidential campaign season, has been Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 

The son of a presidential primary frontrunner in 1968, and nephew of the 35th President of the United States — both assassinated — has been an environmental litigator and vaccine skeptic for years, and, unlike Presidents Biden and Trump, has publicly and fundamentally criticized the handling of the recent pandemic.

Though a Democrat for years, he was marginalized by the Democratic Party — an efficient machine for an astoundingly monolithic power center — and last October decided not to run as a Democrat. 

So he’s gathering signatures, creating parties, all sorts of schemes to make good on his promise of being on the ballot in every state of the union.

As Ron Paul’s last-minute ballot access coordinator in 1988, I know how difficult that is. The two parties have only continued to tighten their grip on American election “rules.” If you were wondering why Bobby Kennedy made his Veep choice so early and picked wealthy Silicon Valley lawyer Nicole Shanahan, the reason is that many states require a Vice Presidential running mate to be on the petition before signatures are gathered.

RFK, Jr., was forced to jump the gun. Plus, now a candidate, there are no campaign finance limitations on Shanahan putting her personal wealth into the effort. 

Interestingly, RFK has formed a “national” political party, the “We the People Party,” which has established footholds in California, Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi, and North Carolina. He has also formed The Texas Independent Party and is on the ballot as an Independent in Hawaii, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Utah.

While in recent years there has been tremendous focus on how people vote, look at all the hurdles and walls still facing the who, if that candidate exists outside the major-party duopoly, a victim of all its silly, anti-democratic laws.

Maybe that’s one way Kennedy’s campaign can “do good,” by highlighting an issue neither party cares about: free and fair elections.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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More Is Less

citizen voting, democracy, elections, immigration, illegal

Jose Barrios was “quite happy to hear we’re going to have more democracy, not less in the District of Columbia.”

Barrios, the president of D.C. Latino Caucus, was reacting to a federal judge’s ruling to toss out the legal challenge, brought by several city voters, to the D.C. Noncitizen Voting Act.

That underlying law, passed by the DC City Council in 2022, certainly puts the “more” into democracy, allowing anyone residing in our nation’s capital for 30 days, even if in the country illegally, to legally vote for mayor, city council and local ballot measures. 

And I do mean “anyone.” China’s ambassador to the U.S. and other Chinese nationals working at their embassy are today eligible voters in Washington. Same for the FSB agents and other Russian nationals working out of their embassy. 

Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that plaintiffs “were simply raising a generalized grievance.” She elaborated: “They may object as a matter of policy to the fact that immigrants get to vote at all, but their votes will not receive less weight or be treated differently than noncitizens’ votes.”

I object to her poor choice of terms. “Immigrants” have been voting in this country for the last century and hopefully always will: By becoming citizens. 

The judge’s ruling also highlights that who votes is a pretty fundamental constitutional question, one that voters should decide. 

Yesterday, Idaho’s legislature voted to place a Citizen Only Voting Amendment on this November’s ballot — joining Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kentucky, which have similar amendments on the ballot. 

Certainly, yes, bestowing the vote on foreign citizens residing in the city for 30 days is an expansion of democracy. But sometimes more is less.

So, let’s ask voters.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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The Colorado Gambit Crushed

Colorado, Trump, election, democracy

The Supreme Court unanimously nixed the clever scheme to keep Donald Trump off the Colorado ballot. The court explained its actions in the second paragraph of its anonymously written March 4th ruling: “Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.”

That’s it. The 14th Amendment, which the Colorado gambit relied upon, does make Congress the instrument for preventing “an insurrectionist” from serving in office.

So Colorado’s ploy to rig the 2024 election out in the open has been stopped. And good thing, too, since the political repercussions could have been . . . harrowing. 

A lot of commentary and reporting on the ruling has been devoted to pushing what was not covered. Take the CNN article by John Fritz and Marshall Cohen, “Trump’s on the ballot, but the Supreme Court left key constitutional questions unanswered.” It is hard not to interpret such headlines as providing excuses to partisan Democrats — in this case those at CNN — who had put so much hope in Colorado’s (and other states’) taking of the Trump matter into their own hands. 

“But while the unsigned, 13-page opinion the Supreme Court handed down Monday decisively resolved the uncertainty around Trump’s eligibility for a second term,” the article explains, “it left unsettled questions that could some day boomerang back to the justices.”

True enough, but so what? Take the first mentioned: “Could Democratic lawmakers, for instance, disqualify Trump next January when the electoral votes are counted if he wins the November election?”

Well, no. 

The 14th’s third section does not list presidents as barred by insurrection: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President,” it says. Electors of. But not the President and VP.

I’m sure the Supreme Court would be happy to expedite an opinion to that effect should the Democrats attempt anything that stupid.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Parties Demoted

voting, elections, primary, democracy, rules

Though “[s]everal left-leaning groups have sued to block the former president from the state’s ballot on 14th Amendment grounds,” Tom Ozimek of The Epoch Times reported in November, “Trump Listed on Michigan Primary Ballot,” as the headline states.

The primary was yesterday. Trump won. As expected.

But he appeared on the primary ballot only with legal wrangling. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, was under a lot of pressure to keep Trump off the ballot. Which she resisted, explicitly stating that she thought the maneuver to allow state officials to prohibit Trump from appearing on ballots because of the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection” clause was a bad idea.

Michigan’s voting system is now quite complicated. First, it’s an open primary state, so there will always be strategic voting, where partisans will cross lines to sabotage opponent parties. Though in the case of Trump, there is some irony here, since Trump benefitted in 2016 from such voting by Democrats, thinking he was the candidate easiest to beat in the general election.

Michigan sports a hybrid system for selecting partisan candidates to appear on the general election ballot. “More of Michigan’s 55 delegates to the Republican National Convention (RNC) will be awarded,” explains Nathan Worcester, also of The Epoch Times, “through the caucus process than through the primary vote — 39 as opposed to just 16.” But there are dueling conventions for caucusing, and it’s quite a mess.*

Michigan also now offers early voting at special voting sites. Is it a sign of a healthy democracy that there are so many ways to vote?

It sure doesn’t seem healthy that national partisan politics almost kept a Republican candidate off a primary ballot. Could the solution be to take parties’ candidate selection entirely out of state balloting?

Demote major parties from their current favored position to paying their own way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* In the Democratic Primary, President Biden won big against Dean Phillips, a largely unknown congressman from Minnesota, and author Marianne Williamson. But, with roughly half the vote counted, a not insignificant 14 percent of Democrats snubbed the president (and the field) by voting “Uncommitted.” Many were no doubt protesting the president’s policies concerning the Israel-Hamas War; in the county containing the University of Michigan, 20 percent voted uncommitted. Yet, even in rural counties across Michigan, more than 10 percent of Democrats opted for uncommitted.

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Enthusiasm for Extremism in Action

Donald Trump, TDS, voting, election

She insists it’s about the rule of law. And not political. Not in any way.

“Maine Secretary of State Claims Politics Played ‘No Role’ in Booting Trump Off Ballot,” is how The Epoch Times headlined the story.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has unilaterally barred former President Donald Trump from the Maine presidential primary ballot. As in the Colorado case, the excuse rests with the January 6, 2021, protest rally and mob entrance into the capitol building. She says that “the weight of evidence” she “reviewed indicates that it was an insurrection.” 

Knowing what real insurrections are, and what words mean, and the long history of protests that get out of hand, including in recent times, most non-partisan people, as well as all Trump supporters, must conclude just the opposite: no insurrection was even attempted.

Bellows may actually believe that the January 6 events constituted an insurrection, that her job allows her to do what has never been done in American history, and that this would be good for the nation.

On the insurrection issue, she and Democrats rely upon motivated reasoning. People worked up in a cause can believe almost anything that would aid the cause. Still, the common-sense guess is that almost no one really believes her . . . but of course her Democratic comrades must pretend.

On the scope of her position, prudence would usually steer a partisan such as herself away from doing such a radical thing.

On the good of the nation, the clear hyperpartisan appearance would exacerbate tensions around the country, widening the divide into a chasm.

What may really be in evidence, though, is that leftists are mimicking the radicalism of the pandemic lockdowns, driven by the sheer frenzy of their vision of themselves as embodiments of righteousness . . . always to exercise arbitrary power.

An enthusiasm that spreads virally. As a mania. 

Thus does extremism work.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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