Big, Big News Kids,
Georgia State Senate bill 359 has been thrown in the hopper for consideration by Senator Shafer of the 48th district! Lots of ins and outs but it reads like the 5% of registered voters requirement would be dropped to 1% of the registered voters. That's significant progress. Not as significant a 1% of the voters that actually voted in the preceding election, but a hell of a lot better than 5% of registered voters.
Section 2 will get you to start scratchin' your head as you get your mind wrapped around the idea that a Candidate could be the nominee of the republican party and the nominee of the Libertarian party at the same time. If such a bizarre event occurred the vote totals for the candidate could not be used to elevate the Libertarian Party from political body status to full fledged political party status because of the association with another major party. What I find interesting about this section of the bill is the idea that one candidate might be the nominee of two or more different parties or political bodies. Imagine Republicans paired up the Constitution Party and Campaign for Liberty, Democrats and Greens, and local Tea parties in every nook and hollow. Could a single candidate get the nominations of 30 different political groups in one election cycle? It's Machiavellian and I like it.
Section 3 says it's cool for one candidate to represent as many political parties/bodies as he wants to as long as the candidate files papers with each political body that nominates him. The rest of the bill is pretty good too. Like the part in section 9 that says all the votes the candidate gets will be aggregated into a final return.
So Kids, some progress is being made to drag the great State of Georgia into the 21st century. Kudos to Senator Shaffer for introducing this bill!
Now if we can only start the ball rolling on getting rid of the Diebold Menace....
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Senator David Shafer, the sponsor, spells his surname that way, not Schafer. Also, the way I read the bill, the Libertarian Party would not need any petitions for district or county office if the bill passes as written, so it's even better for the Ga. LP than this post says.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the edit assist Anonymous, the typos have been removed.
ReplyDeleteDrop back by when you can!
Also, as I read the bill, fusion between two qualified minor parties doesn't seem to be permitted, just fusion between a major party and a minor party.
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