[Iowa-dx] 2008 Election Opinion

[hhart@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu]

Quoting GreenParty Ron <greenpartyron@activist.com>:

> ...if you want to participate with the ONLY POLITICAL PARTY INOUR
> USA THAT HAS DEMOCRACY WRITTEN IN ITS PARTY PLATFORM, joinus in Green
> Party of the United States, and in our Iowa Green Party and
> Johnson County Green Party, we're an official party in Iowa come January
> 1 2008,and we are growing rapidly.  The only reason we haven't been an
> official party inIowa for several years, even though Green Party of the
> United States is a nationalParty, and in Iowa, we've been on the Iowa
> ballots for several years now, isbecause we were excluded by the
> Republican and Democratic Parties whocontrol the Iowa election system.
> But we're an official party in Iowa starting thiscoming January 1st.
>


Ron and Everyone - while many states have extremely slimy systems and =20
horrendous ballot access requirements, Iowa is generally much better =20
than most.  What we didn't have was the option of being able to =20
register to vote as Green Party members.  Reviewing what history and =20
code I have seen on this, it doesn't  appear so much that there was =20
originally an attempt to keep third parties out (ballot access is the =20
same for third party candidates as for independents, and the =20
requirements, while not the easiest, are definitely reasonable and =20
better than most states), but that the state stepped in to govern the =20
larger parties to force them to be open to anyone who wanted to =20
participate.  The practice of registering to vote by party has been =20
connected to the primaries required of the major parties.  However, in =20
states which have partisan registration, that has come to be =20
considered a great value.


IAGP is still not an "official political party" in the state of Iowa, =20
but is a bona fide "non party political organization."  Because =20
partisan registration is now considered a value (and because it's now =20
easy and inexpensive for the state to maintain such records), our =20
litigation was based on the argument that not being able to register =20
by party name was an unfair barrier to our work.    While not an =20
official party, IAGP now has (or soon will have) the benefit =20
considered of great value to our members.

Holly