Ballot Reform

The Centre Daily Times agrees with us about the undemocratic law barring third party candidates from the ballot.  This editorial calls it crazy:

In other words, a third-party candidate who collected more than 58,000 valid signatures still cannot get his name on the ballot to run for statewide office this year in Pennsylvania. That's insane.

While a loyal Democrat I'm also a democrat.  I believe in democracy, with all its faults.  I believe a candidate who gets 20,000 petition signatures as Russ Diamond did should be on the ballot.  A man like Carl Romanelli who has 58,000 valid signatures being thrown off the balot is insane, as the editorial board at the State College paper says.

While at Penn State I was involved in student government and got to interact regularly with a Dean who had a saying that's stuck with me all these years.  His favorite saying about democracy was, "you get what you deserve and you deserve what you get."  Yea, there are a lot of uneducated voters casting ballots and there will always be a certain level of fraud, but it's far and away the best system yet devised.

By uneducated voters I mean ill-informed, not illiterate.  There's a huge difference.  In fact many illiterate voters are better informed than their highly educated brethren who are too caught up in their own lives to have a clue about the poltical, social and economic issues.

The legislature passed the onerous ballot initiative act to preserve their seats.  By making the bar so high the two major parties made it extremely difficult for people like Diamond and Romanelli to compete.  This is shameful and this bill should be on the list of those needing reform when the new wave of lawmakers reaches Harrisburg in January.  Yes, there will be many new faces in the halls of the Capitol come winter.

Comments

[Mark Rauterkus]

Thanks for talking about this important issue. There is more here than hits the press.

The un-democratic democrats are way out of control. To get on the ballot and fighting their challenges is such a burden. More and more are not going to run or be forced to take a pass as I did this August when I pulled out of the race for PA Senate as an I against an uncontested D who had his treasure file a ballot challenge.

But, the PA Senate office FAX Number (of MY senator) was clearly on the top of the paper that were delivered to me with notice of my need to go to Harrisburg court. They left fingerprints on the papers and will face ethics investgations.

[John Morgan]

I followed your quest on your blog last spring. I don't think it's good for our image as Democrats to make democracy difficult for other parties and candidates. No wonder people are apathetic and pissed off.

We need to be doing things to get MORE people involved and into the process, not less.