Petitions Under Way for Third Party Ballot Access
Tulsa World
Readers Forum
6/8/2003
Once again, the Libertarian Party is collecting
petition signatures to allow its candidates to run on the ballot as
Libertarians. Oklahoma is the most difficult state in the
nation for ballot access, with election laws requiring third parties
to gather more than 50,000 signatures just to be on the 2004 ballot.
The ballot access requirement is onerous
because it requires third parties to spend time, money, and effort
collecting signatures, resources that cannot then be spent on
campaigning or other meaningful political activity. It also
costs the state more money, because the state election board has to
count and verify the petition signatures for each and every party
that attempts ballot access in Oklahoma.
For some, this is a simple issue of
fairness. Whether you agree with them or not, why shouldn't
Libertarians or other third party candidates be allowed on the
ballot? Others are satisfied with the "two-party system."
Besides the obvious factor of limiting the
competition, this also limits political expression. Most
people who become active in a third party are proud of their
affiliation. Third party candidates want people to know who
they are and what they stand for.
In spite of superficial similarities, a
Libertarian is not a Republican, and a Green is not a
Democrat. If a third party candidate were to take the path of
least resistance, however, they would register and run as a Democrat
or Republican. The election laws seem designed to fool the
voters and dilute the value of party affiliation, especially since
they give political parties little control over the selection of
their candidates.
When political expression is lost, the political
process itself loses value. In the 2000 elections, Oklahoma
was one of only two states where the well-known Green Party
presidential candidate Ralph Nader was not on the ballot.
Whether they wanted to or not, Oklahoma voters were denied the
option of voting for Nader.
Traditionally, third parties have not gone on to
become major parties. Instead, third party ideas have been
adopted by the major parties. Many of the ideas of the
Socialist Party, for example, became part of the Democratic
platform. With major restrictions on third party access, where
will new political ideas come from? How will voters tell the
Democrats and Republicans they need to change if there are no
alternatives to vote for? What good is the right to vote when
there are so few choices permitted to the voter?
The "two-party system" is not really a
system but merely an outdated tradition, one that has been around so
long that some people are under the impression that it's actually
illegal to run as a third-party candidate. Given the current
status of the ballot access laws, that impression isn't wrong by
much.
The Democrats and Republicans have been running
this country for about 150 years, which means that elected Democrat
and Republican politicians have created our current set of political
problems. We will not solve these problems by electing more
Democrats and Republicans who have nothing new to offer. We
need more than "bipartisanship" for new ideas and
solutions. We need freedom of expression. We need third
parties.
The Revolutionary War was fought because the
American colonists didn't have representation in the British
government. Today, some American citizens are also not being
represented in government, people whose views do not fit in the
simple left-to-right political "spectrum." Easing
the ballot access requirements would give these disenfranchised more
possibilities for political representation and expression.
Furthermore, it would enrich the political
process with competition, debate and discussion, attract more voters
to the booths, and create more opportunities for changing government
and solving political problems. Finally, it would keep
Oklahoma from being the most difficult and restrictive state in the
nation for political access and expression.
Isn't it time for Oklahoma to support fair and
open elections?
Michael A. Clem, Tulsa
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