Indiana’s unfair ballot access laws

In the 2008 presidential election, Ralph Nader, running as an independent candidate, did not appear on the ballot in five states: Texas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Georgia and Indiana.
 
These five states have the deplorable honor of having the most stringent ballot access laws in the nation. In Indiana, a candidate running as an independent or a third party is eligible to be on the presidential ballot by a strange and convoluted process.

He or she must collect signatures from 2 percent of the total votes cast in the most recent secretary of state election. This means a candidate is required to obtain about 34,000 signatures (depending on the voter turnout for the secretary of state that year) to appear on the ballot.

This exorbitant number is absurd when compared to other states’ laws, such as the 5,000 signatures required by Ohio. The requirement of the 34,000+ signatures is only for an individual election. Perhaps these numbers don’t mean much out of context, so consider the number of signatures Republicans and Democrats are required to submit to appear on state or federal ballots: 4,500.

Currently, only Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians have fulfilled the requirements to appear on the state and federal elections in Indiana. If you are a member of one of these three parties, you might ask yourself why you should care that other parties have trouble appearing on the ballots. It is the same reason that you should care if someone’s First Amendment right to free speech is infringed upon, even if you are comfortably unaffected. It is a matter of principle. It is a matter of ensuring a free and fair democracy.

I am by no means a Ralph Nader supporter, but I shudder at the unfair and discriminatory laws that prohibited him from having equal access to voters in Indiana. Living in a democracy, it should be self-evident that a candidate running independently or for a third party should have equal access to ballots. The more candidates and parties on the ballot, the more choice a voter has in voting for a candidate the most aligns with his or her political views. Instead, it seems that most voters feel the need to “pick the lesser of two evils” and vote for someone with whom they only partially agree.

Indiana’s current ballot access laws are reprehensible. I urge the state legislature to enact electoral reform to allow for fair ballot access for all candidates and all parties. Readers interested in learning more about ballot access laws should Google Electoral Reform Act of 2012 or learn more about ballot access issues at ballot-access.org.

­— sdance@indiana.edu