NJ: Third parties win equal rights
The Conservative, Green and Libertarian parties will have the same fundraising rights as the two major parties under an order signed by a Superior Court judge.
The order settles a lawsuit the alternative parties filed against the state.
It removes fundraising limits from the three parties, allowing them to raise money from people at the same levels as Democrats and Republicans. It also allows them to give unlimited contributions to their candidates, just as the Democratic and Republican parties have done.
This is great news. People often criticize third parties, deciding not to even consider them because they rarely make it on ballets which must imply that they have a message no one is interested in. So to because no one is interested there won’t be enough votes to matter so there is no need to invest time or a vote in them. The D’s and R’s though stack the decks against their competition. They make the laws outright bias and the rules convoluted. When the rules are followed they sue to slow down the processing by questioning the legitimacy of the results.
UPDATE: More info here and here.
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October 23rd, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Wow. I never realized things were that slanted.
October 23rd, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Read the two stories I added to the post for more info.
November 28th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
[...] black and white reasons why third party votes are not wasted. Statutes like this one in NH and the one in NJ and in so many other jurisdictions create completely biased environments for the other partys and [...]