In 2000, Nader's California total beat Browne's nationwide total.

you want me to hold the dough? 'long as i get my 5% off the top, let's do it! just kidding. it's 10%.

if you guys are for real, i'll help out. just be sure that you have all of the rules of the bet down before e-day. I don't want to have to make a decision about other people's money.

In 2000 the Green Party was behind Nader. Also Nader was given far more press than Browne. The media always blocks Libertarians because they know we'll make the candidates they support look really badly and ask questions they don't want to answer.

Nader is a statist just like the Republicans and Democrats. He was begging for federal matching funds in the last election and we qualified for them, but turned them down on principle. They know they can deal with Nader, but they're scared of Libertarians.

Nader will not be on the ballot in very many states, and Badnarik will. I feel safe about the bet. I just called the Nader people and they haven't secured ballot access in any states yet, but they have submitted signatures in 8 states, and are trying to get on the Reform party behind them in 7 more. Badnarik is potentially going to be on the ballot in all 50 states. The Libertarian Party is in the midst of legal action in Ohio and Oklahoma to get him on the ballot. If we win, he's on the ballot, if we lose, we are not.

Here's an interesting tidbit. George W. Bush can't legally be on the ballot in Illinois because the Republican Convention doesn't take place until after the certification deadline for that state and he won't be legally declared the GOP candidate until after the convention. I can't wait to see how the Registrar of Voters in Illinois tries to break the law to include him on the ballot after requiring all the other candidates to gather signatures, and do all the necessary paperwork by the deadline.

It would be nice to be able to vote LP and dream of an impact, hoping the Reps would consider policy change. In PA things may end up being so close that lesser of two evils voting kicks in and we end up having to vote Kerry, giving him the mistaken impression that his silly economic policies have some support... anybody wanna buy a vote?

I'm afraid that applies to several other states, as well. :(

Bush still not on Illinois ballot

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

By The Leader-Chicago Bureau

SPRINGFIELD -- The name "George W. Bush" or "Dick Cheney" may not appear at the top of Illinois' November 2 General Election ballot.

As the Illinois General Assembly went home on Tuesday warned they could receive a 24 hour notice to return if a budget agreement was made, there was no agreement to modify the state's election law to allow President Bush and Vice-President Cheney on the fall ballot.

“The Republicans will have to go to a federal judge and get a declaratory judgment to get Bush on the ballot,” Kris Kray, legislative liaison for the state's election board, said.

That is exactly what may happen, State Senator Wendell Jones (R-Palatine) told IllinoisLeader.com today.

"I think the federal judges would put the President back on the ballot," he said. "[Republican senators] are not going to vote for it when it comes to the floor. We want a bill that puts Bush on the ballot without loading it up.”

The Illinois Republican Party chose not to comment about the situation.

The state party's National Committeeman Bob Kjellander plays a prominent part in the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign as the Great Lakes regional coordinator.

Either a specific law modification or a court order will be required to allow the President on the Illinois ballot because current provisions do not fit with the Republican National Convention being scheduled unusually late. The RNC chose to have their convention the first week of September, navigating around the Olympics and Democratic National Convention.

SB 955 would allow the candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President until September 15, 2004 to be officially nominated by their national committees. That is the section the Republicans want.

The problem with the legislation, the Republicans say, is the Democrats have added lots more, just as they did last year when the Illinois House passed the bill only to die when Senate Republicans refused to accept the proposed changes to the election law.

All other states, except for Illinois, were able to iron out the election law wrinkles.

Last year, legislation to fix the problem was killed by Senate Republicans when they refused to allow the waiver of Election Board fines for politicians and political action committees to be tied to putting Bush on the ballot. The State Board of Elections has since acted on new legislative authority and lowered many fines substantially.

On Sunday night, the Illinois House passed in a 90 to 23 vote language in SB 955 that would allow Bush on the ballot. The amended bill made it out of the Senate committee in a 6-4 party line vote, with Democrats supporting and Republicans opposing.

“The Democrats loaded that thing up with all kinds of stuff,” explained Senator Jones, the spokesman of the Local Government Committee to which the bill was assigned. “They want to be able to register voters fourteen days before the election. It doesn’t give the county clerks enough time to turn it around and get it in the binder."

Jones said the Election Board balked at the shortened time for voter registration and the bill's sponsors were able to get only five votes -- all Democrats -- in committee. Six were needed to get SB 955 out of committee and onto the Senate floor. Barack Obama, the sixth vote, arrived late, the committee reconvened and subsequently passed SB 955 onto the Senate floor, all too late for a vote while the General Assembly was still in session.

Jones said the Republicans are likely not to support the bill this session if the bill is called for a vote as currently worded. The Senate will need three-fifths to pass the legislation after the May 31 deadline.

“They’ve got in there where you can register to vote at the welfare agencies,” he continued. “Again, they are just loading it up with things that just don’t make a lot of sense. It’s not the responsibility of a lot of state agencies to provide voter registration information. They only put it where their party would likely congregate. They basically loaded it up with things that had nothing to do with the 'Help America Vote Act.'

“They've got everything in here but cemeteries in Chicago. They’ve been voting for a long time,” Jones said facetiously. “We might as well make it legal.”

Besides accepting pregnant and hanging chads as votes with the punch card system, pro-Democrat provisions in SB 955 allow voter registration at state agencies such as the Department of Children and Family Services and public assistance offices.

SB 955 also requires persons found guilty of felonies to step down from political party offices, a problem the Republicans ran into when former Cicero Mayor Betty Loren-Maltese refused to step down from her job as Cicero Township committeeman, even while she is in federal prison.

In addition, a section of the election law on candidate vacancies has been changed to specifically allow a party's state central committee to now fill a U.S. Senate vacancy by appointment.

But if the law does not make it to the Governor for his signature, all the provisions will irrelevant.

Libertarian Party Executive Director Jeff Trigg has been watching the development of the awkward situation for over a year.

As a third party that has not had the head of its ticket win five percent of a general election vote, every two years the Libertarians must gather 25,000 petition signatures to gain a place on the ballot. The party is in the process of doing so now.

In both 1998 and 2002, Republican political operatives have challenged the Libertarian petitions. Libertarians were not on the ballot in 1998, but gained ballot access in 2002.

“There obviously is a double standard when it comes to ballot access in Illinois,” Trigg told Illinois Leader.com last year. “You can be sure, if the tables were turned and it was the Libertarians nominating their Presidential candidate seven days after the deadline, they wouldn’t lift a finger to help us stay on the ballot and, in fact, would use that to make sure our candidate did not appear on the ballot.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 8, 2004

Gov. Blagojevich signs bill putting Pres. Bush on ballot in Illinois


SPRINGFIELD, Ill.— Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich today signed Senate Bill 2123, effectively allowing President Bush to appear on the Illinois ballot in November 2004. The bill signed today amends the Election Code to allow a presidential candidate to be put on the ballot in Illinois even with that candidate’s nominating convention occuring after the ballot certification deadline.

The new law, sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Frank Watson (R-Greenville) and House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego), goes into effect immediately. Without the legislation, President Bush would be prohibited from appearing on the ballot in Illinois. With the Republican nominating convention being held this year in September, without the bill, Illinois state law would not allow for his nomination to be certified within the statutorily required 67-day period before the general election.

“Illinois citizens should be able to vote for the sitting President if they choose, and this technical change will make sure that they have that option in November,” said Governor Blagojevich. “I appreciate the nearly unanimous consent of the General Assembly on this matter.”

What a crock of shit!!! The Libertarians are forced to get 25,000 signatures to get on the ballot and the Republicans don't have to. And the Republicans have forced Libertarians off the ballot when the exact paperwork wasn't filed by the deadline, but all the sudden Bush is above the law. The same state that wouldn't hesitate to leave the Libertarian candidate off the ballot will violate their own election laws to accomodate the Republicans. This should go to the supreme court.

So are we going to do this or what?

radar - do you think there would be even a remote possibility of the republicans not coming up with 25,000 signatures. this is just a calendar issue. the smaller parties have to jump through the hoops so that there aren't 20 candidates on the ballot. right or wrong, that's the way it is.

i think it's dirty pool for the R's to schedule their convention so close to election day in the first place.....or was this a matter of National Security again? code tangerine, with just a hint of red around the edges.

It was a matter of "close to September 11".

in theory it was due to the olympics and not wanting to be too close to the dem convention

The Libertarian Party is the third largest party in America. It's bigger than all other third parties combined. I say if we have gathered enough signatures to be on the ballot more than once, hell even 3 times, we should be on the ballot all the time like the major parties. It costs a lot of money to gather that many signatures.

I agree, and they should be penalized for it by not being included on the ballot in Illinois because they didn't meet the deadline everyone else was forced to adhere to.

So Jim are you down to broker this bet?

yeah, assuming jinx lets me use her paypal account, and the fees she incurs are covered by the purse, i'll help out.

remember that list that went around...something like, how fucked up the world is when the best golfer is black, the best rapper is white...etc? well you can add this one to it. the guy you trust to hold the dough is in the car biz.;)