Libertarians are about freedom and liberty… We’re for you’re right to say “no thanks” to bureaucrats and meddlers (and worse) who like to round up voters so they can hijack democracy and rife into to your wallet and rights. To libertarians, the government has one job: to protect your right as an individual to say “no thanks!” That means protecting your life, property, and rights of freedom and liberty — something it hardly does in its current form.

Libertarians being a party of such principles can’t help but be pleased to see Ron Paul, a Republican, doing well on a platform we support. It is a platform so rare today among Republicans and Democrats — and rarer than it was in the early 1970s when we were formed. But do we can that Ron Paul is an R? Nope. He’s an L at heart and in action, and for most of us, that’s what counts. Go message of freedom and liberty! Go Ron Paul!

The real voting problem: third-party or independent candidates are shut out

Paper ballots may stop votes disappearing from recounts (”In Praise of Paper” by Bruce Schneier, Dec. 3 Forum), but they won’t stop candidates disappearing from Pennsylvania ballots.

2006 saw no Pennsylvania third party or independent statewide candidates because unfair rules required over 67,000 ballot access signatures. Major-party statewide nominees needed only their 2,000 primary election signatures.

When the Green Party’s U.S. Senate candidate attempted ballot access, Democratic Party lawyers filed suit resulting in ballot denial and a staggering $1 million fine.

Incumbent parties use law and crippling financial threats to silence candidates who serve us all by bringing uncomfortable topics to political debate. Thus, paper backups won’t stop disappearing debate from disappearing candidates.

What will? The Voters’ Choice Act.

Since 2005, PaBallotAccess.org, a coalition of Libertarian, Green, Constitutional, Reform and other parties, has promoted the VCA. It would implement fairer ballot access rules. We need to push this again in the 2007 Legislature.

While unverifiable recounting is a concern, a far greater concern is censoring debate by unfairly prohibiting ballot access.

MARK CROWLEY
Plum

The Libertarian Party of Pittsburgh is sad to announce that one of its most popular and energetic candidates, David Posipanka of Homestead, has been forced to withdraw from his race for State Representative in the 35th district.

After having laboriously gone door-to-door in various Mon Valley neighborhoods to collect 446 signatures from residents in order to get his name on the November ballot, a legal challenge to his candidacy was brought by two White Oak residents who are neighbors of the two-time Democrat incumbent, Marc Gergely. Additionally, the lawyer who drew up the legal papers is a childhood friend of Mr. Gergely’s, and it seems likely that either Mr. Gergely’s campaign or the local Democratic Party Committee is paying for the legal challenge, which sought to invalidate many of the signatures on Mr. Posipanka’s nomination papers.

The challenge to Posipanka’s nomination papers, which had been accepted by the State Elections Bureau on August 1st, was filed on August 8th, and Posipanka was served with court papers the evening of August 10th by a local constable. Local Libertarian Party database manager and Posipanka campaign advisor, Harold Kyriazi, estimated from careful database work, that Posipanka would fall about 40 signatures shy if he sought to fight the court challenge, because about 110 of the signatures seemed to be from residents who aren’t registered to vote.

Not wishing to travel all the way to Harrisburg on a workday for what would likely be a losing effort, Posipanka decided to submit to the request of Gergely’s lawyer friend, who brought a withdrawal form to Posipanka’s house the day after “informing him” about the possibility of punitive legal fees if the case went to court.

Said Posipanka, “I don’t blame anyone for using any and all legal means at their disposal to win, but I’m a little surprised that Mr. Gergely feels threatened by me, seeing as how I only got 9% of the vote in my previous race against him. I guess it’s the fear of the current ‘Throw the bums out’ voter sentiment, after the illegal pay grab fiasco from last year. Frankly, though, I’m a little disappointed in him, for not wanting to engage in a healthy exchange of ideas for the fall election. Having only one candidate on the ballot is something we associate more with dictatorships than with America.”

Major party candidates need only collect 300 signatures during the weeks before the Spring Primary, whereas minor party candidates need to solicit either 300 or 2% of that district’s previous election’s highest winning vote total, whichever is higher. This means that in some cases, a minor party candidate needs to collect almost 600 signatures while major party candidates need only 300. For statewide offices the situation is infinitely worse: this year, any minor party candidate for Governor or U.S. Senate needed 67,000 valid signatures, while major party candidates needed only 2,000.

“These sorts of shenanigans are not only unfair, but a direct violation of the Pennsylvania constitution, which stipulates that ‘elections shall be free and equal,’ said local party chair Dave Powell, from Morningside. “In my book, 67,000 does not equal 2,000. And, if minor party candidates for the state house needed only the 300 signatures needed by major party candidates, David Posipanka would still be on this year’s ballot.”

“It is our hope that the people of Pennsylvania will get behind a bill we’ve tried all year to have introduced in the state legislature, that will rectify the situation. It’s called the Voter’s Choice Act,” said local LP secretary, Henry Haller, of Shadyside. “This proposed legislation is the result of the efforts of a group called the Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition, which has representatives not only from the Libertarian Party, but the Green, Constitution, Reform, and Socialist parties, and even the decidedly non-libertarian Prohibition Party, among others. It seeks to implement in Pennsylvania the same simple and fair ballot access standards used in neighboring Delaware.”

More about the VCA may be found at: http://www.paballotaccess.org/voters_choice_act.html.
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The LP of Pittsburgh represents the approximately 2,800 registered Libertarians in Allegheny County. It maintains a website at www.lppgh.org, and may be contacted there, or by phone at 412-904-2976.