mdh
04-12-2009, 12:23 AM
The LPWV (http://www.lpwv.org/) has endorsed HB 2981 and Mr. Britch and Mr. Harris of the LPWV Executive Committee along with LNC chair Bill Redpath have made trips to Charleston over the past few months to lobby on behalf of this bill. We’ve worked hard, and it’s paid off - the bill has passed both the house and the senate. I've also personally received word from the legislative liaison to Governor Manchin's office that he will sign the bill. The bill passed by huge margins, receiving bi-partisan support in both the WV house (92 - 2) and senate (93 - 6).
Here’s the low-down. Right now, it takes a number of signatures equal to 2% of the number of voters who voted for a given office in the previous election, to get someone on the ballot for that office in an upcoming election. Let’s say 750,000 people in WV voted for President in 2004. That would mean that for 2008 ballot access for a presidential candidate, the LP and other minor party and independent candidates would need to collect 15,000 valid signatures to get on the presidential ballot in West Virginia’s general election. Add to that the number that will be invalidated, and you come up with a need for 20,000 - 30,000 total signatures. This is a huge burden on minor party and independent candidates in the state. What this bill would do is cut that down to 1%. This means that in the above hypothetical scenario, only 7,500 valid signatures would be needed. In terms of dollars and cents, this is a savings of tens of thousands of dollars per 4-year election cycle for the Libertarian Party of West Virginia. Beyond that, this bill will also bump the filing deadline for those petitions to August 1st for gubernatorial candidates. Currently, that deadline is much earlier, while the deadline for presidential candidates is August 1st. This bill creates a single filing deadline of August 1st for all petitions for ballot access in the state.
This is great news for minor party and independent candidates across the state of West Virginia. Thanks to all who contributed financially to our efforts to lobby for this bill, and a special thanks to Matt Harris, Tad Britch, Bill Redpath, and Rebeka Baird who took time out to go to Charleston several times to lobby for this bill with our state legislators.
Here’s the low-down. Right now, it takes a number of signatures equal to 2% of the number of voters who voted for a given office in the previous election, to get someone on the ballot for that office in an upcoming election. Let’s say 750,000 people in WV voted for President in 2004. That would mean that for 2008 ballot access for a presidential candidate, the LP and other minor party and independent candidates would need to collect 15,000 valid signatures to get on the presidential ballot in West Virginia’s general election. Add to that the number that will be invalidated, and you come up with a need for 20,000 - 30,000 total signatures. This is a huge burden on minor party and independent candidates in the state. What this bill would do is cut that down to 1%. This means that in the above hypothetical scenario, only 7,500 valid signatures would be needed. In terms of dollars and cents, this is a savings of tens of thousands of dollars per 4-year election cycle for the Libertarian Party of West Virginia. Beyond that, this bill will also bump the filing deadline for those petitions to August 1st for gubernatorial candidates. Currently, that deadline is much earlier, while the deadline for presidential candidates is August 1st. This bill creates a single filing deadline of August 1st for all petitions for ballot access in the state.
This is great news for minor party and independent candidates across the state of West Virginia. Thanks to all who contributed financially to our efforts to lobby for this bill, and a special thanks to Matt Harris, Tad Britch, Bill Redpath, and Rebeka Baird who took time out to go to Charleston several times to lobby for this bill with our state legislators.