Small opposition parties are banned from the California ballot

The 2010 nominee of the conservative American Independent Party.
The GOP wants to keep Conservative parties off the November ballot.
The GOP could care less about your freedom to vote for who you want.

Banned From The Ballot

• The primary was a vehicle for the political parties to select their candidate for the only real election there is - the November election.
• But the corrupt bastards of both parties cut a midnight deal without any public hearings to abolish the primary and effectively ban all smaller opposition parties and independent candidates from all future November general elections.
• Note that every democratic nation on earth has all parties on a general election ballot.  That translates that California is now authoritarian, not democratic.

By John Wildermuth
San Francisco Chronicle

Doomsday could be fast approaching for California's smallest political parties.

With the coming of "top-two" primary elections in California, thanks to passage of Proposition 14 in 2010, the Green, Peace and Freedom, Libertarian, American Independent, and Americans Elect parties find themselves in danger of disappearing from the state ballot, joining the Prohibition, Socialist and Progressive parties in the mists of California's history.

"We're getting wiped out by top two," said Michael Feinstein, spokesman for the Green Party. "It's wiping out political diversity and choice that voters now are not going to get."

Once a political party qualifies to appear on the state primary ballot, California law sets out a couple of ways it can stay there.

Banned from the ballot
The 2010 Libertarian Party
nominee for Governor.

First, the party can have official registration equal to 1 percent of the votes cast in the most recent governor's election, which works out to 103,004 registered voters, based on the 2010 race.

The second way allows them to have a much lower number of registered voters, currently 11,832, but only if one or more of the party's candidates can collect at least 2 percent of the vote in one statewide general election.

But under the new election rules, which will be used for the first time in a governor's race this year, only the two candidates with the most votes advance to the Nov. 4 general election. With the Democrats and Republicans having a stranglehold on those top spots, there won't be any minor party candidates on the November ballot.

That means it's registration numbers or nothing for the minor parties.

That's not necessarily a problem. The conservative American Independent Party, which has been qualified for the California ballot since 1968, had 472,536 registered voters as of April - well above the needed total.

The other minor parties, however, are rooting for a low-turnout election in November.

In 2010, about 10.3 million Californians voted in the November election for governor, a nearly 60 percent turnout. Using that year's qualifying number of 103,004 registered voters, the Green Party, with a registration of 109,157, and the Libertarian Party (114,656), are just squeaking by, while the Peace and Freedom Party (77,594) and the Americans Elect Party (3,604) face ballot extinction.
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"The top-two (primary) is making it difficult, but we're willing to rise up to the challenge," said Gale Morgan, Northern California vice chairman of the Libertarian Party.

In the 2010 election, every minor party had at least one candidate who broke the 2 percent threshold in one or more statewide contest, keeping them alive through this year.

While some of those minor party votes may have been protests against the Republicans and Democrats on the ballot, the candidates also received support from people who liked their stance on the issues, said Feinstein, a Green who is the former mayor of Santa Monica.

"This disenfranchises everyone," he said of the top-two system.

Banned from the ballot
Laura Wells was the 2010 Green Party nominee for Governor of California.  The Democrats & GOP have worked together to ban all smaller political parties and independent candidates from the general election ballot.  The Elites have even declared that your write-in vote is illegal and will not be counted.

A member of the Green Party beat a Democrat.  The Democrat Party wants the corrupt "top two" system so they will not see another Green Party member win a State Assembly seat.

List of special elections to the California State Assembly
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage
	Green	Audie Bock	14,674	50.56%
	Democratic	Elihu M. Harris	14,347	49.44%
Totals			29,021	100.00%
Voter turnout			%
	Green gain from Democratic

 

Banned from the ballot
Democrats and Republicans joined together to keep all smaller parties off California general election ballots.  The Democrats want to prevent voters from casting ballots for left-wing parties.  The GOP wants to prevent voters from supporting right-wing candidates such as Jim Gilchrist (above). 

Neither major party has any interest in a thing called Freedom. 

California's 48th congressional district special election, 2005
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage
	Republican	John Campbell	46,184	44.24%
	Democratic	Steve Young	28,853	27.64%
	American Independent	Jim Gilchrist	26,507	25.39%
	Green	Béa Tiritilli	1,430	1.37%
	Libertarian	Bruce Cohen	974	0.93%
Invalid ballots			457	0.44%
Totals			104,405	100.00%
Voter turnout			25.74%

 

Living in a free nation means that all political parties
are on the general election ballot.