Electoral Freedom Act of 2011

The Electoral Freedom Act of 2011, House Bill 32 & Senate Bill 225, is the motivation and spotlight of the Free the Vote Coalition and a vital piece of legislation to restore free elections in the state of North Carolina. The Electoral Freedom Act of 2011 (HB32/SB225), as introduced in the North Carolina House of Representatives and Senate, will work to equalize the playing field for so-called "minor" political parties or alternative political parties, as we like to call them, by doing the following:

1. Reduce the number of signatures a would need to obtain ballot access to the fixed number of 10,000, eliminating the unreasonable percentage-based requirement that currently requires a new political party to collect in excess of 80,000 signatures.

2. Reduce the number of votes needed for a to remain on the ballot to a fixed number of 10,000 votes for Governor or any Council of State office, eliminating the unreasonable vote requirement for the new political party to obtain at least two percent of the vote.

3. Reduce the number of signatures must obtain for ballot access, by replacing the percentage-based requirement with a flat number for each office sought:

a. 10,000 for Statewide Office

b. 1,000 for US House of Representative

c. 300 for NC State Senate

d. 150 for NC State House and any county, municipal or other office with more than 25,000 registered voters as of January 1 of the election year.

e. 50 for any county, municipal or other office with 25,000 or less registered voters as of January 1 of the election year.

4. Eliminate the need for to obtain signatures for ballot access, and require only that they submit a declaration of intent in order to have votes for them counted.

5. Alter NC's law to ensure the cost of Primary Elections do not increase. It does such by having Party's with voter registrations of less than 10% choose to nominate their candidates by:

a. Party Convention, or

b. Public Primary, with winner determined by simple plurality vote (no runoffs).

NC House Primary Sponsors:

Representatives , , and

NC House Co-Sponsors:

Representatives , , , , , and

NC Senate Primary Sponsors:

Senators and

NC Senate Co-Sponsors:

Senator

Why North Carolina Needs the Electoral Freedom Act of 2011

North Carolina needs the Electoral Freedom Act in order to restore the right of every citizen to vote for the candidate of their choice, a right currently denied by the state's exploitative, unequal and free speech stifling laws that keep most alternative political parties and unaffiliated candidates off of the election ballot. Our state's ballot access laws are intended to hinder competition and artificially assist the two major parties by placing unreasonable and unnecessary restrictions on any competition through restrictive signature requirements unparalleled in most other states.

To obtain ballot access, a new political party in North Carolina must collect in excess of 85,000 signatures from registered voters, a figure based on a 2% of the vote in the last gubernatorial election. Only two other states in the nation require a higher number of signatures for ballot access for political parties than North Carolina. One of those two is California, the nation's largest state.

Two-thirds of all states require 8.5 times fewer signatures (more than 75,000 less) than North Carolina, and well over a majority of those require 17 times fewer signatures (more than 80,000 less).

North Carolina law results in the most restrictive ballot access laws in the entire nation for independent candidates or unaffiliated candidates as they are called here. The law requires candidates for U.S. Congress to collect 20,000 plus signatures in some districts, which gives North Carolina the distinction of having the highest signature requirements for unaffiliated Congressional candidates in the nation during many election years.

The state's argument that lowering signature requirements for new political parties and unaffiliated candidates would result in ballot clutter or voter confusion are not borne out by history or the experience of states in our region. Tennessee requires only 25 signatures for independent candidates for Congress, Virginia only 1,000 and Florida simply requires payment of a filing fee.

The Free the Vote Coalition believes that the North Carolina's election law scheme violates the fundamental rights of freedom of speech and freedom of association. When a fundamental right is abridged, the courts have always demanded that there must be a valid state purpose for that restriction and that it must be the least restrictive means of meeting that purpose. North Carolina's ballot access scheme in no way meets that standard.

Most other states use far less restrictive methods to control ballot access, and even North Carolina's own history shows that our current law does not measure up to the least restrictive criteria. From 1929 to 1981, our state required only 10,000 signatures for a new party to get on the ballot, the same number proposed in the Electoral Freedom Act of 2011, yet even during that time only four parties qualified for the ballot.

The Tarheel State can and must do better than its current laws. Free choice and truly representative government demand that it must, and so do we. We hope that you will stand with the Free the Vote Coalition and support our effort to bring more choice, more representation and more freedom to North Carolina.

Fliers About the Electoral Freedom Act (House Bill 32 & Senate Bill 225)

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