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| NC Election Law - Abridging Our 1st Amendment Rights |
BryanGreene2008 writes, "Year after year we hear of individuals whose freedoms of speech, assembly, or religion are violated by either the federal or state governments, demanding that their freedoms be respected. Yet, we never seem to hear of the unconstitutional and deplorable abridgement of thousands upon thousands of Americans’ freedom of speech that takes places every election day in almost every state of the union.
This infraction upon our freedom of speech is the infringement on our right to vote by constrictive ballot access laws, and it is a degradation of the very essence of our representative form of government. These ballot access laws restrict thousands of American citizens from being able to vote, or at least being able to vote for the candidate that they feel best represents them. To better understand how these laws restrict the voter’s right at the ballot one needs to be acquainted with the laws and then the implications of those laws. Sadly, one of the most restrictive states in the union for these types of unconstitutional laws is our very own North Carolina.
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North Carolina General Statute Chapter 163 deals with elections and election law. Currently, due to this general statute, in North Carolina only the Republican and Democratic parties are recognized as “official” state parties which may have their candidates listed on the ballot and allow people to register as affiliates of their parties. According to North Carolina law for a new political party, such as the Constitution Party, to gain this same status, that party must petition the voters of the state and gather signatures from at least two percent of the total number of registered voters who voted in the last general State election for governor. This means that for a new party to gain this status in North Carolina, that party must gather approximately 70,000 to 75,000 signatures just to be placed on the ballot. In the rare case that any political party actually gains this outrageous number of signatures, then it must receive at least two percent of the vote on election day every election afterward to keep that status.(1)
Yet, our laws for political parties are not even the worst part of these restrictive ballot access infringements. In the state of North Carolina, for an individual, such as Bryan Greene who is running for NC’s 10th District seat in US Congress, to run for a partisan public office as an independent or unaffiliated candidate, he must obtain signatures from four percent of the total number of registered voters, not just those who voted in the last election. Therefore, as in Bryan Greene’s case, with a total number of 410,500(2) registered voters living within district 10, his campaign must gather a minimum of 16,420 signatures to simply gain access to the ballot, according to North Carolina’s 2006 registered voter statistics, whereas Republican and Democratic candidates need not gather a single signature. For this reason, North Carolina is the most restrictive state in the entire nation regarding independent or unaffiliated candidates running for public office. In North Carolina’s largest district, district 4, candidates would have to obtain approximately 20,500 signatures to gain access to the ballot, making that district the most restrictive in the entire nation for ballot access.(3)
The arguments in favor of these ballot access laws are numerous, but the one which seems the most profuse also ranks among the most shameful of any of those used by advocates of these restrictive ballot access laws. The argument states that we need these ballot access laws to keep individuals with extremist views off the ballot or to keep candidates from the Communist, Socialist, and Nazi parties off the ballot so that they cannot be elected to represent us. Though I do agree that the idea of an individual with Communistic or Nazi views representing us in government is detestable, who are we to say that they cannot run for office in a free nation? Likewise, though as American’s we rightfully may feel threatened by the ideas and beliefs of Islamic extremist and fear the concept of Jihad, the Islamic extremist should also be afforded the same right to run for public office as any other political party or individual in this country. I do tremble to think that at any point in our nation’s future we may elect such individuals to public office, yet I believe that this fear is uncalled for because the American people will vote for whom best represents them when given the opportunity to do so. Yet, with these ballot access laws we are only given a selective choice and many times the choices are no better than any Communist or Islamic extremist candidate may have been. Therefore, we must ask ourselves and those who represent us the harder questions that accompany liberty, because with liberty there is a price. Was the United States of America not founded as a free nation, where men and women have the right to choose for themselves, where everyone has the right to run for office and the right to vote for the candidate whom they feel best represents them? Is the right to vote and elect public officials not one of our most fundamental rights? Without the right to vote would we not be living in a dictatorship or a monarchy?
What “[we] the people of the United States” of America fail to realize is what liberty really is. Most of the citizens of this country see liberty as a ticket to do whatever they please and make their own choices, even at the price of abridging another’s freedom. Essentially, those citizens are saying that liberty does not have to be afforded to every citizen of this country, as long as their individual liberties are protected. Yet, this is not the liberty that the founders of this once great Republic gave to us. The liberty of the founders, which seems to have long faded in the distant past, was one where individuals had the right to choose for themselves and be free of unnecessary government interference, but that liberty to choose and do as one pleases only went (and may I say, still only goes) as far as to not take away the liberties of others.
In the simple idea and philosophy of liberty and freedom which America was built upon, those laws which restrict an individual’s right to vote hold no viable constitutional argument and serve only as means to control the elections to keep either of the two major parties in office, by restricting the voters voice at the ballot box. Yet, is it not ironic how elected officials and the government do not seem to understand why so many people do not vote in the elections and are constantly hounding the public to vote. In spite of this, our elected officials still hold to, and uphold these laws which disallow the voter to exercise his right to vote because that candidate is not of a particular party affiliation or has a lack thereof. To demonstrate this, North Carolina’s registered voters are comprised of approximately 45.1% Democrat, 34.4% Republican and surprisingly 20.4% unaffiliated voters.(4) This means that there are potentially 1,125,859 registered voters in the state of North Carolina alone who may feel that they cannot vote, unless they vote for the lesser of two evils because of these unconstitutional ballot access laws.
It is time that we stand up for true liberty and fight against the now normal, selfish liberty that so many of our elected officials in the North Carolina General Assembly and even our friends and neighbors have advocated on ballot access laws, and explain to them why these laws are unconstitutional and hostile to the principles of liberty and free government. We must show them that these types of restrictions clearly violate, to the fullest degree, our right to free speech by taking away the right to vote, which in all reality is taking away our free system of government inch by inch every election year. We must stand up, and we must not be silent if we want to retain our beloved liberty. Speak up; tell your state legislators that these laws are outrageous and must be done away with and that truly free elections must be restored. Let’s get the media’s attention and show this state what must be done.
1. North Carolina General Statute §163-96
2. North Carolina State Board of Elections, “North Carolina Statistics Report Oct. 2006,”
3. Winger, Richard. “North Carolina Has Nation’s Highest Petition for Independent Candidates for US House.” Ballot Access News. August 9, 2007
4. North Carolina State Board of Elections.
© Jordon M. Greene, 2007. Jordon M. Greene is the Caldwell County Director of the Constitution Party of North Carolina, Campaign Manager for the Bryan Greene 2008 Congressional Campaign Committee, and the North Carolina State Chairman of the National Traditionalist Caucus.
This Article is archived at: http://www.bryangreene08.com/articles/nc_election_law.html
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Posted on Oct 25, 2007 10:21am.
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