[Lnc-business] report on Oklahoma visit

[Scott L.]

If the LNC continues to fund the current ballot access petition drive in
Oklahoma, we need to commit to ALSO fund lobbying after the election to
maximize the chance that we can get the Oklahoma State Legislature to reduce
the vote test to something much more reasonable, such as 2% for any
statewide office (and that new law should explicitly include US Senate).

 

It would also make us look a lot more financially responsible to our members
if we jawbone the LP of Oklahoma to use the ballot access that we are
purchasing for them so that they recruit enough LP of OK members to run for
all of the statewide offices.

 

That way, hopefully at least one of them would get enough votes to pass the
potentially lower vote test.

 

   Scott Lieberman



GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of
Nicholas Sarwark
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2015 2:36 PM
To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org
Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] report on Oklahoma visit

 

>From a message I received forwarded from Mr. Winger in response to Dr.

Lieberman's comments:

 

"don't downplay the chances we could get the Oklahoma vote test eased

 

I saw your response to the Oklahoma discussion from the LNC.  I hope

you will be optimistic about our chances of improving the Oklahoma 10%

vote test retention law.

 

We have had more luck easing the requirements to STAY on, with state

legislatures, than any other issue.  We, or other political parties,

have persuaded state legislatures to ease the retention law during the

last 40 years in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado,

Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland,

Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota,

Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin,

and Wyoming.  That's 28 states.

 

And chances are good for Minnesota and Pennsylvania during 2016.  We

will also work on this in Virginia.

 

Always, when state legislatures have eased the retention requirement,

the change has gone into effect immediately even if the state had to

look back in time at election returns that were earlier than the date

of the legislative change.

 

If we don't get on the ballot in 2016 in Oklahoma, though, it will be

inevitable that the Oklahoma legislature won't look at this.  There

are reasons why states actually favor easier requirements for a party

to remain on.  One, it's a lot of work and expense for election

administrators when parties go on the ballot, then off, then on, etc.

First of all, it is expensive for governments to check petitions,

especially petitions with lots of signatures.  Second, it is also

expensive for the states to constantly reprint voter registration

forms if those forms list all the qualified parties.  If the list of

qualified parties is stable, there is less need to reprint the forms.

 

And once we have been on the ballot and the legislators see nothing

terrible happened, the resistance to letting us stay on the ballot

melts away."

 

Mr. Winger also pointed out to me in a phone conversation that the

deadline for the Oklahoma petition is one of the earliest in the

nation and probably subject to being struck down in court, but failing

to continue the drive through to the deadline would have a negative

impact on standing for any such lawsuit.

 

    Nick

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20151202/27fb5e24/attachment-0002.html>