Ron Paul campaign hits area streets tomorrow

November 25, 2011. Chicago. With the March 20, 2012 primary election in Illinois just around the corner, prospective candidates and their volunteers are already in the precincts, ringing doorbells and collecting petition signatures. The Ron Paul for President campaign has announced they’ll officially begin their organized petition drive in the Chicago area this weekend.

With the Board of Elections making it as difficult as possible for regular citizens to run for office, this column can’t even report how many signatures Presidential candidates and their local delegates must collect to be included on the ballot. The ‘Candidates Guide’ offered by the Illinois agency conveniently leaves the President and his delegates out, saying the information may be released at a later date. A follow-up PDF document, which sounds like it contains the information, crashed three different computers while trying to open and view it. A quick call to the Board of Elections offices found no live humans.

Typical tradition in Chicago and Illinois is this – if you want to run for office and need information, don’t trust the Board of Elections. In Cook County, the Party apparatus decides who can and can’t run for office. If you’d like to run, contact your Ward boss and he or she will guide you through the purposely-difficult process.

Another way the Democrat and Republican establishment keeps regular citizens off the ballot is by imposing a different, and much more difficult, set of rules. For example, if one of our readers would like to run for Congress, they would need to collect petition signatures to have their name appear on the ballot.

If they choose to run as either a Democrat or a Republican, they would need to collect only 600 valid signatures. If they choose to run as an independent, a Green, a Libertarian or any other party, they will need to collect and submit 5,000 valid signatures. Presidential candidate Ron Paul knows that double-standard only too well. In 1988, the Texas Republican Congressman ran for President as a Libertarian. After experiencing all the obstacles the Republicans and Democrats have put in place to limit any opposition to their co-rule, Paul chose to instead run as a Republican this time around.

In another example of the tactics Republican and Democrat controlled Boards of Election use to keep challengers off the ballot, consider this. Last year, the state of Michigan accidentally left the names of Green Party candidates off their ballot, even though the Board of Elections readily confirms the party satisfied all ballot access requirements. The office called it a “clerical error”.

In a more local example from last year, the Green Party candidate for Illinois Governor had his name misspelled on the ballot by the Chicago Board of Elections. The ‘accidental’ typo mysteriously happened in 23 of Chicago’s 50 Wards, mainly Black areas. The candidate’s name should have been spelled, ‘Rich Whitney”. Instead, the Board of Elections printed his name on the ballot in the Black Wards as, ‘Rich Whitey’. It would be pretty funny if it weren’t our democracy they were playing games with.

In the most recent example, the Green Party filed suit against the Illinois Board of Elections last month over the Board’s blatant double-standard against the party and its candidates. As the rule states, any party that garners more than 5 percent of the vote is awarded the same ‘special’ ballot access requirements (600 signatures versus 5,000) that Republicans and Democrats enjoy. The Green Party satisfied that requirement in numerous elections last year.

For 2012 however, the Illinois Board of Elections ruled that the Green Party is losing its special ballot access privilege because districts and wards have been remapped due to the census. The Board argues, since the old districts where the Green Party had ballot access don’t exist anymore, neither does the Green Party’s special ballot access. Basically, the Board revoked the Green Party’s status and forced them to start over as a new party for the newly drawn districts. The only problem, as pointed out in the Green Party lawsuit, the Board upheld the Republican and Democratic Party exemptions in those same newly drawn districts. All three parties had ballot access, but because the districts were redrawn, the Green Party and only the Green Party is being unrecognized. The Green Party called the Board’s position “absurd”.

The Greens aren’t alone in facing the almost insurmountable obstacles put in place by incumbent politicians in an attempt to hold onto their power. Libertarians, America First-ers, the Constitution Party, the Independence Party, Socialist Workers and especially lone independents – they’re all up against the same obstacles and double standards. The libertarian Republican Congressman Ron Paul is no exception.

The Ron Paul 2012 Presidential campaign invites anyone interested in volunteering some time to help circulate petitions so Rep. Paul can get his name and his delegates on the ballot in Illinois to stop by one of the meet-up locations below this weekend.

CD 5

Sat, November 26, 11:30am – 4:00pm

Dunkin Donuts - 7240 W Devon Ave - Chicago, IL 60631

CD 6

Sat, November 26, 9:00am

McDonalds - 653 South Rand Rd - Lake Zurich, IL 60047

CD 7

Sat, November 26, 10:00am and 1:30pm

Starbucks - 7201 Lake Street - River Forest, IL

and

Sun, November 27, 11:00am

Old St. Patrick’s Church - 700 W Adams St - Chicago, Illinois 60661