Jul. 24, 2006
How Open Should the Ballot Be?
By Chris Heagarty
RALEIGH - North Carolinians are stubborn about democracy. That may be why we have some counties that still elect coroners, and why we elect more state officers than 48 other states.
Research from the nonpartisan N.C. Center for Voter Education shows that even though many North Carolina voters can’t tell you who they are voting for in certain races, they still want the right to cast a ballot for those offices.
Should we continue to elect important state officers if more people can name last year’s “American Idol” winner than the men and women they voted into office? Most voters stubbornly say “Of course!”
Taking it a step further, I had a friend in college who was so steadfast about his right to vote for the candidate of his choice that it did not matter if the person he wanted to vote for was on the ballot or not -- he would write them in anyway.
One year he wrote in Jack Kemp and Elizabeth Dole as his choice for president. I told him that unless they were registered as write-in candidates, his vote wouldn’t count. He said it didn’t matter; that’s whom he was voting for, period.
Should people be able to vote for anyone they want? Should they be able to write in any candidate, announced or unannounced? Where do you draw the line?
Wake County’s nonpartisan municipal elections require write-in lines on the ballot for each office listed. Cherie Poucher, the county’s Board of Elections director, says that every year there are votes for cartoon characters, people who vote for themselves, and the most popular write-in, “none of the above.”
Elections are expensive, but adding a few candidates to the ballot is not a significant increase in their cost, says Poucher. Though taken to an extreme, such as the California gubernatorial recall with its long list of candidates ranging from adult film stars to Gary Coleman, few counties could afford that kind of free for all.
But acknowledging that we need to be responsible in our use of tax money for elections, how restrictive can we be about who gets on the ballot and still claim that we are a free democracy? Where is the line between counting votes for Mickey and Goofy and setting up unfair hurdles for legitimate candidates?
That question was debated last week by the state legislature.
The North Carolina Open Elections Coalition seeks to change the law to make it easier for new parties to get on the ballot. Current state law says that in order for a new party to get on the ballot, it needs to collect signatures from a number of state voters equal to 2 percent of the votes cast for governor in the last general election. That means 70,000 names based on the 2004 results.
In order to stay on the ballot, and not have to go through the whole qualifying process again, a party’s nominee for governor or president must receive at least 10 percent of the vote. That’s about 350,000 votes.
Ross Perot’s presidential bid garnered about 6.8 percent for the Reform Party in 1992, and Scott McLaughlin, the Libertarian candidate for governor that year, received just over 4 percent. The most recent Libertarian gubernatorial candidate claimed under 2 percent.
House Bill 88, the Electoral Fairness Act, passed in the N.C. Senate. But according to many of its original supporters, the measure has been changed to do little to help citizens who want to vote for a newly formed party.
The bill makes it easier for a new party to stay on the ballot if they qualify to get on it in the first place. But getting onto the ballot? Those requirements haven’t changed.
Brian Irving, a Libertarian, says, "In terms of democratic access to the ballot, North Carolina and Alabama rank at the very bottom."
While grateful that it was made easier to stay on the ballot, members of the coalition ask, what good does it do to stay on the ballot if they can't get on the ballot in the first place?
Republican Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger led the effort to lower the number of names needed to get on the ballot, but his amendment was defeated.
People are stubborn about voting. The Open Elections Coalition tried to go through the legislative process to get what they wanted, but came up short. Their next stop may be the courts. A lawsuit has been brought against the state Board of Elections, alleging that the ballot access requirements are a breach of the state's constitutional guarantee of free elections.
Should people be given the opportunity to vote for whichever parties or candidates they want? What is a reasonable test of support? Write your editor and let us know.
Chris Heagarty is the executive director of the N.C. Center for Voter Education, a Raleigh-based nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving elections in North Carolina.
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