US rulers step up attack on right to be on ballot
https://themilitant.com/2021/03/20/us-rulers-step-up-attack-on-right-to-be-on-ballot/
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Vol. 85/No. 12
March 29, 2021
The capitalist rulers and their Democratic and Republican parties have
been stepping up attacks on ballot access for the Socialist Workers
Party, and other independent political candidates. This effort is
bipartisan, as millions of workers and farmers, facing worsening working
and living conditions and seeing no serious answers coming from the two
parties of the bosses, are looking for new political answers.
State legislators, backed by court rulings, have been imposing
increasingly onerous ballot requirements — upping the number of
signatures that must be gathered on petitions and pushing deadlines for
meeting filing requirements further and further away from scheduled
elections, sometimes into the year before.
The Democrats fear that the SWP — which calls for workers to build their
own party, a labor party, based on their unions — would get more media
and attention from working people if it is on the ballot. And they fear
losing votes to third pro-capitalist parties like the Green Party, which
could cost them close elections. The Republicans don’t want to see
parties like the Libertarian and Independence parties siphoning off
votes that could cost them an election.
The capitalist rulers in the U.S. have governed for decades through
their two-party shell game, telling working people that if you don’t
like one of their parties, just go for the other one.
In New York state, a new law in 2020 promoted by Democratic Gov. Andrew
Cuomo boosted to 45,000 the number of petition signatures required when
third parties try to run for statewide office, three times the already
high 15,000 set before.
The law also increased the number of votes a third party had to get to
retain party ballot status in the next election, from 50,000 to 130,000.
This meant the Libertarian, Green, Independence and Serve America
Movement parties have been removed from the ballot in the future. Now
they’ll have to petition for every single office they want to run for
going forward.
When these parties challenged the new restrictions, a federal appeals
court refused to hear their case, saying removing them from the ballot
would improve the chances that the winner of the election will have
received a majority of the vote!
Ballot requirements raised
In Iowa, the state Senate passed a bill Feb. 23 that would increase
petitioning requirements from 1,500 to 3,500 signatures for independent
candidates and minority parties running for president, U.S. Senate or
governor. It also imposes a new distribution requirement of getting at
least 100 signatures in each of Iowa’s 19 counties. The state’s House of
Representatives is now considering the bill.
In Arkansas, the House unanimously passed a bill Feb. 4 to increase
petition signatures from 1,000 to 5,000 for independents or other
parties running for president.
The U.S. Supreme Court Feb. 22 refused to hear a challenge to the
decision by North Carolina officials that petitions for independent
presidential candidates must be submitted by the first week of March —
eight months before the general election. Their decision means that
similar deadlines could also be set in Maryland, Virginia and West
Virginia, and even earlier in South Carolina — in February.
Not to be outdone, the Montana legislature has begun discussing pushing
back the deadline for a new party to file petitions there to December of
the year before the election.
In Arizona, the State Supreme Court removed independent presidential
candidate Kanye West from the ballot last year, saying it would explain
why later. “He was apparently removed from the ballot because his
elector candidates didn’t file campaign finance documents,” wrote
Richard Winger, publisher of Ballot Access News, not because of any
problem with his petitions. “Never before had the state required
electors to file such documents.”
In Alabama, the state charged the Libertarian Party $36,000 to get a
copy of the list of registered voters, while “ballot-qualified parties”
— the Democrats and Republicans — got the list for free.
Doesn’t there seem to be a trend here?
Ky. SWP launches campaign, ‘Workers need their own voice’
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — “Working people need a voice and a movement,” Margaret
Trowe told Rebekah Dow of WLKY-TV as she interviewed the Socialist
Workers Party candidate for mayor at a press conference outside City
Hall March 12. “Like the 18…
SWP ballot drive in New Jersey gains ground
UNION CITY, N.J. — Supporters of the campaign of Joanne Kuniansky and
Candace Wagner, the Socialist Workers Party candidates for governor and
lieutenant governor of New Jersey, made steady progress during the
second weekend of a six-week effort to put…
Working class needs its own foreign policy
Statement by Joanne Kuniansky, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New
Jersey governor, March 16. Democratic and Republican politicians alike
claim to wield U.S. economic and military influence at home and abroad
in the interests of “all Americans.” Workers and farmers…
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LA, NY protests hit deadly raids by Philippine gov’t
Song backing dictator in Belarus removed from Eurovision contest
US rulers step up attack on right to be on ballot
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--
Charles Bukowski “For those who believe in God, most of the big
questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the
God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to
new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a
command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the
teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here
to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds
and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” ―
Charles Bukowski