top of page
Image by Diogo Nunes
madcogreenparty

Texas Green Party Won a Ballot Access Case. Why can't we?

In 2023 the Green Party is awakening in Alabama. We are working hard to formalize our

presence as a viable political party and educate voters about our democratic values and platform. We need to consider all of our legal options to redress the injustice of lack of ballot access if we are going to meet our goal of helping everyday Alabamians. Party suppression is voter suppression. In the 1968 ballot access case Williams v. Rhodes the Supreme Court made an importantdistinction in the concept of voting rights: the difference between voting as a procedural formality versus the ability to vote effectively, meaning the right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choosing

which is linked to the right of the candidate to exercise their right to appear on the ballot. The Court explained: “The right to form a political party for the advancement of political goals means little if a party can be kept of the election ballot and thus denied an equal opportunity to win votes. So also, the right to vote is heavily burdened if that vote may be cast only for one of two parties at at time when

other parties are clamoring for a place on the ballot.” The court found that Ohio's impossible ballot access requirements gave Republicans and Democrats “a permanent monopoly on the right to have people vote for or against them.” (Hall, Oliver. “Death by a Thousand Signatures: The Rise of Restrictive Ballot Access Laws and the Decline of Electoral Competition in the United Stated.”) We have far less democratic freedom to vote for minor political parties than we had a century ago when minor parties proliferated and successfully pushed for reforms that were later adopted such

as abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, child labor laws,worker rights, civil rights, and social security. States have uniformly made ballot access laws stricter requiring drastically prohibitive numbers of petition signatures for candidates to get on the ballot as well as restrictive time periods to do so. In contrast, as late as 1948 the majority of states still granted ballot access to any candidate who submitted as few as 500-1000 signatures. So what do states argue is the reason to uphold draconian ballot access requirements? The two arguments are that 1) having too many candidates on the ballot would be “confusing” to voters and 2) it would lead to instability of the two party system which is needed to uphold American democracy. Have you ever gone into a Madison County voting booth and been confused by too many choices???

A Win in Texas for Ballot Access On June 28, 2023 U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman of the Western District of Texas held that Texas's ballot access procedures for independent and minor party candidates unconstitutional insofar as they require use of paper nomination petitions. The plaintiffs in the case including the Texas Green

Party and Texas Libertarian Party argued that both their 1st Amendment Right (right to freedom of assembly and petition) and 14th Amendment Right (Equal Protection Under the Law) were being violated by requiring severely burdensome requirements. In 2020, the challenged provisions required minor parties to obtain 83,717 valid signatures on paper nomination petitions in only 75 days. They showed evidence that it is too costly and time consuming. The cost to obtain the signatures would have

been in excess of $600,000. By contrast, Texas guarantees ballot access to the two major parties by means of taxpayer-funded primary elections. Texas has also adopted electronic procedures, at taxpayer expense, which minimize the burden of administering the major parties’ primary elections. “Judge Pitman correctly concluded that Texas’s obsolete 118-year-old petitioning procedures create a financial

barrier to entry that is insurmountable for non-wealthy candidates and parties,” said CCD attorney Oliver Hall. (Center for Competitive Democracy, www.competitivedemocracy.org) The plaintiffs were

represented pro bono by Shearman & Sterling, LLP, a global law firm. The Texas ruling set a precedent, and the Green Party in other states are following suit. Alabama has the worst ballot access laws in the nation, and it's time we start to challenge this status quo!

bottom of page