Minor Parties and Election Laws

When Hillary Clinton left the US Senate to assume her role as Secretary of State, Gov. David Paterson of NY appointed Representative Kristen Gillibrand to be Clinton's replacement in the Senate. In order to fill Gillibrand's empty House seat, a special election was called for New Yorks 20th congressional district.

The Democrat and Republican parties quickly found candidates and began their campaigns, while Libertarian hopeful Eric Sundwall sent out scores of volunteers to collect the 3500 signatures needed to appear on the ballot; a daunting task even during a normal election cycle. In 2006 Sundwall collected 5200 signatures in 6 weeks for the same seat only to have almost half of them thrown out bringing him 690 short of the 3500 needed to be on the ballot. In 2006, three people filed objections to his signatures and were represented by Tom Spargo.

This year, Sundwall was able to collect over 6700 signatures in ten days, nearly twice the number required to be on the ballot. And yet again, there were challenges to his signatures. Donald J. Neddo, and Laurie Kelly Sickles represented by John Ciampoli filed general challenges with the board of elections almost as soon as Sundwall filed them. A week later, specific challenges were filed, including those from Patricia Killian.

Things like signers claiming affiliation with a party they aren't registered as, putting their mailing address instead of their physical address, that the witnesses didn't actually see the person sign the petition or that dates and names were either wrong or unreadable.

Even the members of the board of elections noted that the overly technical requirements are unfair but that they couldn't do anything about it.

In all, Sundwall found himself over 500 signatures short of being allowed on the ballot. But, being that the election is less than a week away, the Board of Elections recommendation to take him off the ballot is probably too late. Sundwall's name is already on many absentee ballots that have been sent to New Yorkers overseas, in the military and elsewhere. In fact, even if they vote for Sundwall on these ballots, their votes will be considered void.

It seems a little extreme to void a vote simply because the person they voted for came up short, just barely, of the requirements for a third party petition, but still had enough valid signatures for if he were a member of one of the two major parties. Why can't the Board of Elections just take votes for him as what they are or even write-ins? Why can't a well informed voter who happens to be away from home have to have his constitutional right to vote thrown to the wayside because the ballot was sent out with one too many names.

The other concern I have with this whole thing is that the lawyers who represented the challengers in both cases have been high profile Republican lawyers. In this years case, Mr. Ciampoli is a legal consul to the state Senate Republican Campaign Committee. One of the challengers to Sundwall's petitions, Patricia Killian is the Dutchess County Conservative Party Chairwoman. In 2006 it was Sweeny's long embattled attorney Tom Spargo who represented challengers to Sundwall's signatures.

Although Jim Tedisco, the Republican candidate for the seat, has said he is was not involved with the challenges, it seems that the Republican party itself is afraid of any third-party candidate who may "steal" votes away their camp. Although Libertarian candidates travel a path closer towards a mix between Democrats and Republicans, their message of smaller government and deregulation speaks clearly to conservatives who would typically join the ranks of the Republicans.

A bill written 11 years ago, which would have the number of signatures needed to run for congress dropped from 3500 to 1200 and extending the time to obtain them has been sitting around collecting dust. Had this bill passed, people like Sundwall could be spending more time and money on campaigning rather than on expensive legal battles just to get their names on ballots. The last action on the bill was in January, where it was "referred to election law" for the umpteenth time.

Not only does this stalling keep minor party candidates off of ballots, but it is a slap in the face to the principles that this country has been founded on. The major parties keep trying to stop competition in order to save votes for themselves, but in reality they are only stifling new ideas.