Sample Ballots
 

Yay! My sample ballot came in the mail! What? There's more on it than just the office of the president? Well, lets see what else there is...

From the Florida ballot:

Proposing amendments to the State Constitution to require the sponsor of a constitutional amendment proposed by citizen initiative to file the initiative petition with the Secretary of State by February 1 of the year of a general election in order to have the measure submitted to the electors for approval or rejection at the following November's general election, and to require the Florida Supreme Court to render an advisory opinion addressing the validity of an initiative petition by April 1 of the year in which the amendment is to be submitted to the electors.

After reading it once, I had to read it out loud, but ran out of breath. :dead: Get the proposer some punctuation!

We also have eight individuals listed as choices for Office of the President. Does this vary from state to state? I wasn't expecting so many this time around.

It does vary from state to state. That's why Nader and the Republicans are fighting state by state to get Nader on the ballots.

Well, we have Nader. Here's the set, including a number I've not heard of, before.

George W. Bush (REP)
John F. Kerry (DEM)
Michael A. Peroutka (CPF)
Michael Badnarik (LIB)
David Cobb (GRE)
James Harris (SWP)
Walter F. Brown (SPF)
Ralph Nader (REF)

Florida is going to be in for a real fun election count. Hoo, boy.

Wow... On my ballot this morning (in Texas) I had the choice between Kerry, Bush, Badnarik, and Write-In.

Texas ballot access requirements are amongst the worst in the country. From here:

Nice spin.

Spin? True as far as I can determine, so why spin? :confused:

Republicans don't like to be mentioned as helping Nader.

I know, HM. But why is a straight out fact, being called spin, by Griff?
Makes me wonder what the definition of spin is? I always thought it was trying to convince people that a statement or event really didn't mean what most people would think at first glance. :confused:

Is the party listing always the same, Rep first, Dem second and whoeverelse third? If they are, is there anything on whether or not the Republican set in a given election situation gets more votes because people who might not be sure in the booth simply select the first in the line? It's like a huge multiple choice question with no correct answer. It doesn't have to be a significant number of votes more to swing an election either way.

I think what he's saying is that the Ds have worked just as hard or harder to keep Nader off than the Rs have worked to get him on.

"Thank goodness the judges acted to keep some of the candidates off the ballot."
-- common theme in the USA right now

In DC:

John F Kerry (DEM)
David Cobb (DC statehood GRN)
Michael Badnarik (LIB)
James Harris (SWP)
George W. Bush (REP)
Ralph Nader (IND)
Write in

I'd disagree with "just as hard or harder", if only because it's much less work to challenge signatures than it is to collect and defend them.

Oh stop. The Rs did the hard work of paying signature gatherers at $1 a signature. The Ds did the hard work of paying their $300/hr lawyers to invalidate those signatures and play with state election laws.

Political hackery hurts America and makes baby Jesus cry.

And the Rs did the hard work of defending signatures and playing with state election laws. So, by your calculations, R: $301, D: $300