New Hampshire Libertarian Party wins lawsuit over voter list
Posted on November 28th, 2007 by bile Categories and Tags: Uncategorized, Carol Ann Conboy, Constitution Party, Democratic Party, elections, Green Party, Libertarian Party, New Hampshire, New Jersey, politics, President, Republican Party, Ron Paul, Socialist Party, Thanksgivinghttp://www.ballot-access.org/…
A (New Hampshire) judge has struck down a new law that allowed the state to sell detailed voter information only to major political parties.
Judge Carol Ann Conboy wrote that the law put small parties at a distinct disadvantage.
Before the law went into effect in July, most voter data, such as name and party registration history, had been available only on a town-by-town basis. Under the law, the information was available statewide, but only to parties that have received 4% of the vote in a statewide contest. In New Hampshire, that meant only the Democrats and Republicans.
I got into a discussion at Thanksgiving dinner about ‘wasted votes’ and how a vote for Ron Paul or the Libertarian candidate would be one. The arguments went that a vote for either would siphon votes from the person you dislike least of those who ‘have a chance.’ That reasoning makes no sense to me. Who defines who has a chance? The media? If everyone followed that reasoning it would only take a single individual to claim who could win and everyone else would need to vote for that person. When do you determine who to vote for? Do I support Ron Paul and attempt to get his name an platform out to the voters until the very second I vote for Rudy? Why would anyone invest the time into supporting a candidate they feel more closely matches their beliefs just to vote otherwise? They won’t… and that will create the self fulfilling situation of the ‘one who can win’ winning. Let us not forget that rarely is the propagation of information linear. If I’d never bothered to look into Ron Paul my family would have unlikely had shown any interest in him (not that necessarily support him now.) As support increases so does the acceleration and that will give credibility to the campaign… which unfortunately many people use as a major component in deciding who they will vote for. But even if you ignore all that, which is a major component IMO, there are 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 independents. You can’t have the government provided tools to help you raise awareness of your party or it’s candidates until you raise awareness of your party. But for those who already have the awareness and means… we’ll subsidize them. Doesn’t seem fair and it’s surely not equal. If any vote is wasted it is when it comes to the popular vote for POTUS where most states’ electors vote with the majority. If 50% of NJ goes D than all those R votes above 5% are a waste… but with laws like the one in the article in effect a vote for Libertarian or Green or Constitution or Socialist wouldn’t be. You’d be helping to level the playing field.
