Justification of Strict Ballot Access Laws By Two Party Supporters
Strict ballot access laws are not required for a two party system, as can be seen by the experience of Canada and the United Kingdom. However, the following arguments are put forth about the need for strict ballot access laws in the United States
- With plurality voting, allowing third candidates on the ballot could split the vote of a majority and throw the race to a candidate a majority dislike. Allowing only two candidates on the ballot insures that at least the worst one is never elected.
- If a third party could get enough votes to win an election, then voters who would support the nominee could infiltrate one of the two parties by registering as members, and force a win in that party's primary. However, pulling this off would take considerable coordination on the part of the supporting voters, especially if half of them preferred to infiltrate the other major party or remain independent. It would also depend on the rules of the major party for how people may become candidates in their primary, and on which registered members may vote in the primary.
- There is a one person one vote mandate. If voters could vote in a primary for one candidate, and then sign a petition for another candidate, this would violate that mandate. Some voters might sign a petition for the candidate they want, and then vote in the primary for the candidate who would be easier to beat. Since primary votes are anonymous, and a party therefore can not remove that voter's vote after it is cast, the only remedy is to strike the voter's signature on the petition. As for signatures not counting if a voter later votes in a primary, that could be reformed since the political party would know in advance about the signatures if they are filed in time.
- Sore loser laws, where a candidate who loses in a primary may not then run as an independent candidate in that same election, stem from contract laws. Similar minded candidates run in the same primary with the contract that the losers will drop out of the race and support the winner so that they do not split the votes of similar minded voters and cause the other party's nominee to win with 40% of the vote. The need for primaries is primarily because of plurality voting, whose rules state that the candidate receiving the most votes wins, even if not a majority.
- Strict ballot access laws make it difficult for extremists to get on the ballot, since few people would want to sign their petition.
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