Re: Lindsey Drath on Expanding the Two-Party Political System

On 2025-07-21 10:43 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 20:01:05 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
<ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
 

Here's a segment from C-SPAN Washington Journal from 7/21/2025.
>
Lindsey Drath on Expanding the Two-Party Political System
https://www.c-span.org/program/washington-journal/lindsey-drath-on-expanding-the-two-party-political-system/662767
>
She speaks well and really appeals to me. Someone else listen and tell
me what she gets wrong.
>
She's promoting ballot access for the Forward Party. Andrew Yang put
cash into this but I think they've moved beyond his influence.

 By "promoting ballot access" do you mean "having their candidates'
name on the ballot"?
 Because no question that CAN be abused - Canadian Conservative party
leader Pierre Poilevre could speak to that - voters in his district in
the April 2025 election were handed a ballot with 100+ names on it and
this was considered THE primary element in his defeat. He is now
facing a by-election and again the same types have managed to get 50+
candidates on the ballot.

According to this article, there are now 132 candidates on the ballot for Poilievre's by-election - and there is still time for more candidates to sign up!
https://www.insauga.com/poilievre-calls-for-law-to-block-long-ballot-protests-that-abuse-democracy/
I like the reforms he's proposing to make it harder for people to put up spurious candidates, particularly a requirement that any given person can only nominate ONE candidate. Under the present rules, every one of the current 132 nominees could have been put up by the exact same 100 people. I wouldn't be opposed to a small deposit being required too, just as it was for many decades. Even using the old deposit amount of $200 would quickly discourage frivolous candidates (except perhaps a wealthy AND frivolous candidate) without being an insurmountable barrier to almost any serious but impoverished candidate. (Heck, even the Communist parties came up with the deposit amount even if they only got a handful of votes each.)

When my grandfather was twice a federal candidate in the 1960s and
each time his party had to put up a deposit (refundable if he got a
certain %age of the winner's vote count). Back in the 60s the deposit
was $50 - now it's $250. Meaning that putting up 100 candidates costs
at most $25000 if no other attempt to campaign is made. That was a
serious deposit back in the 60s - far less so now. That's chicken feed
for federal candidates - at least serious federal candidates.
 Does the US have such a system for candidates - and if so what are the
required deposits?

--
Rhino