Richard Winger publishes Ballot Access News, and is the non-governmental authority on nuances of national and local ballot access. Below are extracts from his Ballot Access News January 2022 Issue (V:37 N:8), “Georgia Ballot Access Hangs in The Balance, State tells judges only well-funded candidates should be on ballot; two Eleventh Circuit Judges seem to agree.” Having titled his article provocatively, Richard Winger proceeds to cite US Supreme Court language that refutes these ill-informed lower court judges and incumbent state legislatures. Extracts from his article are cited above. I encourage you to go to the Ballot Access News web site and read the section in its entirety. Details of reaching Mr. Winger are Box 470296, San Francisco, CA 94147 (415) 922-9779. richardwinger@yahoo.com and Ballot Access News, www.ballot-access.org.
Extracted Sentences and Paragraphs:
Last sentence of the 8th paragraph: “The only type of candidate that the U.S. Supreme Court has said should not be on the ballot is a ‘frivolous’ candidate.”
Tenth paragraph: “Generally, in the context of minor party and independent candidates, a ‘reasonably diligent’ candidate is one who sets up a campaign webpage, appoints a campaign treasurer, accepts all invitations from groups to fill out candidate questionnaires and to speak, and who prepares and distributes campaign literature.”
Twelfth paragraph: “And in the last fifty years, no minor party candidate has been elected to the U.S. House. The U.S. Supreme Court understands that minor party congressional candidates are useful, even though neither they nor anyone else expects them to win.” (Emphasis mine.)
Thirteenth paragraph: “In Sweezy v New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, the [Supreme] Court said, ‘All political ideas cannot and should not be channeled into the programs of the two major parties. History has amply proved the virtue of political activity by minority, dissident groups, who innumerable times have been in the vanguard of democratic thought and whose programs were ultimately accepted…the absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness in our society.’” (Emphasis mine.)
Thank you for reading these excerpts. Some readers may speculate that the evidence that the Approval Voting Party is frivolous, is that it has sometimes encourages voters to not “waste” their precious single vote on us, but to vote for a more viable alternative. At this time, asking for votes is placing an unreasonable demand upon the voter, and denying the oppressive realities of the current two party dominated system.
On the contrary, we are reasonable and recognize that the only way to get beyond two-party thinking is to enact Approval Voting and let the voter vote for everyone he or she approves of, and the candidate with the most votes wins.
Thank you,
Frank Atwood, Frank.Atwood@Hotmail.com, 720/260-1493
Chair of the Approval Voting Party, February 27, 2022