North Carolina Soon to be Three Party State
The Libertarian Party of North Carolina delivered
approximately 76,000 voters' signatures to the county Board of Elections
offices this week in an effort to gain ballot access through the year 2000.
The party gathered over 25,000 more signatures than required. Law dictates
that political parties must gather signatures equal to 2% of the votes
cast in the last gubernatorial election in order to offer choices on the
ballot on election day.
"We are committed to giving voters more choices on the ballot,"
stated Candi Copas, Ballot Access Coordinator for the LPNC. "What
does your right to vote mean when there is only one candidate running?
It was truly a good day for democracy in NC."
The Libertarian Party isn't the only third party to attempt electoral
success in North Carolina. In fact, both the Reform and Natural Law parties
are currently experiencing disaffliliation of all of their voters in North
Carolina. This means that all Reform and Natural Law voters will have their
party affliliation removed, and will appear as unaffliliated voters in
voter records.
The order to disaffliliate the Reform and Natural Law parties came from
the State Board of Elections on May 12, but did not include the Libertarian
Party. Presumably, the effort underway to continue ballot access, coupled
with the large numbers of Libertarian voters made it unweildy to disaffliliate
the party, only to have to re-register all of the voters as Libertarian
again days later.
The choice to petition for ballot access was made before the 1996 elections,
in order to allow Libertarians to appear on the ballot in ALL partisan
elections in North Carolina through the year 2000. This year, however,
the LPNC is the only third party in the nation seeking ballot access, according
to Richard Winger of the Coalition for Free and Open Elections.
"To my knowledge we are the first minor political party to have
ever achieved four year ballot status in NC. Most other third parties simply
cannot afford back to back ballot drives," said Copas.
The ballot access battle is being fought in other arenas, as well. Copas
worked with the Election Law Study Committee drafting HB79, which was introduced
this session of the General Assembly. The bill, if passed, would move the
petition deadline for new parties back to the third Thursday in July ,
change the wording of the petition to clarify that it's for ballot status
only, and would prevent disaffiliation of third party registrants in NC
forever. This would help third parties grow because they would not lose
their registered voters every 4 years, instead they would merely accrue
registrations over time, something only the two state approved parties
have been able to enjoy in the past.
"Once we've earned our way back onto the ballot once again, we
can turn our attention toward the 10% ballot access retention goal in the
gubernatorial race, as well as winning seats in the legislature,"
Copas stated, adding, "We will no longer be kept out of the process
by law."
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