The right to vote

Ballot access rules hinder election process in North Carolina

From Chris Heagarty, executive director of the N.C. Center for Voter Education in Raleigh:

North Carolinians are stubborn about democracy. That may be why we have some counties that still elect coroners, and why we elect more state officers than 48 other states.

Research from the nonpartisan N.C. Center for Voter Education shows that even though many North Carolina voters can't tell you who they are voting for in certain races, they still want the right to cast a ballot for those offices.

Should we continue to elect important state officers if more people can name last year's "American Idol" winner than the men and women they voted into office? Most voters say "Of course!"

Should people be able to vote for anyone they want? Should they be able to write in any candidate, announced or unannounced? Where do you draw the line?

Wake County's nonpartisan municipal elections require write-in lines on the ballot for each office listed. Cherie Poucher, the county's elections director, says every year there are votes for cartoon characters, people who vote for themselves and the most popular write-in, "none of the above."

Elections are expensive, but adding a few candidates to the ballot adds no significant cost increase, says Poucher. Still acknowledging we must more responsibly use tax money for elections, how restrictive can we be about who gets on the ballot and still claim we are a democracy?

The legislature debated that question recently. The N.C. Open Elections Coalition sought to change the law to make it easier for new parties to get on the ballot. Current state law says that to get on the ballot, a new party needs to collect signatures from a number of state voters equal to 2 percent of the votes cast for governor in the last general election. That means 70,000 names based on the 2004 results.

To stay on the ballot, and not have to go through the whole qualifying process again, a party's nominee for governor or president must receive at least 10 percent of the vote. That's about 350,000 votes. Ross Perot's presidential bid garnered about 6.8 percent for the Reform Party in 1992.

House Bill 88, the Electoral Fairness Act, passed in the N.C. Senate. The bill makes it easier for a new party to stay on the ballot if they qualify to get on it in the first place. But the requirements for getting on the ballot didn't change. Brian Irving, a Libertarian, says, "In terms of democratic access to the ballot, North Carolina and Alabama rank at the very bottom."

Members of the coalition ask, what good does it do to stay on the ballot if they can't get on the ballot in the first place?

Republican Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger led an effort to lower the number of names needed to get on the ballot, but his amendment was defeated.

The Open Elections Coalition tried to go through the legislative process to get what they wanted, but came up short. Their next stop may be the courts. A lawsuit has been brought against the state Board of Elections, alleging that the ballot access requirements are a breach of the state's constitutional guarantee of free elections.

Should people be given the opportunity to vote for whichever parties or candidates they want? What is a reasonable test of support? Write your editor and let us know.