Electoral Fairness is finally getting a hearing!
This message is sent by Sean Haugh on behalf of the NC Open Elections Coalition. Thanks to Hart Matthews of the NC Green Party for much of the information below. If you wish to receive email from me containing news of interest to North Carolina Libertarians, just send me a note to seanhaugh@mindspring.com and let me know, thanks.
The Electoral Fairness Act (H88) is on the agenda of the NC Senate’s Judiciary 1 Committee on Wednesday, July 5th at 1pm. The meeting will be in room 1027 of the Legislative Building, the main General Assembly building on Jones St. in Raleigh.
The Electoral Fairness Act (EFA) originally was designed to significantly reduce both the signature and retention requirements to get and stay on the ballot in North Carolina. Currently NC is the third hardest state in the country to get on the ballot (according to Ballot Access News). EFA would bring us closer to the national average. The Libertarian Party already has gathered enough signatures to meet the proposed new requirements.
However EFA was amended in the middle of the night to eliminate all the positive gains of the bill while retaining a new filing fee and other barriers. So now the EFA would actually make things worse for the Libertarian Party and other third parties!
Please contact the members of the Judiciary 1 Committee (J1), especially if you are a constituent of one of these Senators. Tell them that H88, the Electoral Fairness Act, needs to be returned to the version passed by the committees in the House (version 3). Please be aware that the majority of these Senators are actually quite sympathetic to our bill and electoral fairness in general, so we need to simply show them how important the issue is and encourage them to work hard so that the right version of the EFA is put on Governor Easley’s desk before the close of this legislative session.
You can read up on the legislative history and provisions of the Electoral Fairness Act here.
And here’s a link to the list of J1 Senators.
We also need more signatures on our online petition! We had a wave of new signatures last week when Common Cause and Democracy NC put out email appeals for us. Thanks to those groups for coming on board! Ask your friends to sign it too!
Thanks for all your help!
The Electoral Fairness Act (H88) is on the agenda of the NC Senate’s Judiciary 1 Committee on Wednesday, July 5th at 1pm. The meeting will be in room 1027 of the Legislative Building, the main General Assembly building on Jones St. in Raleigh.
The Electoral Fairness Act (EFA) originally was designed to significantly reduce both the signature and retention requirements to get and stay on the ballot in North Carolina. Currently NC is the third hardest state in the country to get on the ballot (according to Ballot Access News). EFA would bring us closer to the national average. The Libertarian Party already has gathered enough signatures to meet the proposed new requirements.
However EFA was amended in the middle of the night to eliminate all the positive gains of the bill while retaining a new filing fee and other barriers. So now the EFA would actually make things worse for the Libertarian Party and other third parties!
Please contact the members of the Judiciary 1 Committee (J1), especially if you are a constituent of one of these Senators. Tell them that H88, the Electoral Fairness Act, needs to be returned to the version passed by the committees in the House (version 3). Please be aware that the majority of these Senators are actually quite sympathetic to our bill and electoral fairness in general, so we need to simply show them how important the issue is and encourage them to work hard so that the right version of the EFA is put on Governor Easley’s desk before the close of this legislative session.
You can read up on the legislative history and provisions of the Electoral Fairness Act here.
And here’s a link to the list of J1 Senators.
We also need more signatures on our online petition! We had a wave of new signatures last week when Common Cause and Democracy NC put out email appeals for us. Thanks to those groups for coming on board! Ask your friends to sign it too!
Thanks for all your help!
posted by genushaha at 11:12 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home