Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Fwd: Immediate Action Reqested...Voters' Choice Act reintroduced into the PA Senate soon!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "tim Crowley" <timcrowley1@verizon.net>
Date: Feb 11, 2015 8:34 PM
Subject: Immediate Action Reqested...Voters' Choice Act reintroduced into the PA Senate soon!
To: "Mark Rauterkus" <Mark@rauterkus.com>
Cc:

Immediate Action Reqested...Voters' Choice Act reintroduced into the PA Senate soon!

 
Dear Mark,
 
The Voters' Choice Act, which would drastically reduce the onerous petition signature requirements for all PA Third party candidates, will soon be reintroduced into the Pennsylvania Senate by Senator Folmer.
 
Since you and I are  both 'Third Party' activists, I'm asking you to please rally your friends to support this legislation.   Please have them contact their state Senator this week.
 
Attached is some information on the Voters' Choice Act, as well as a sample letter supporting the VCA.  They may save you some time should you choose to help us out. 
 
Best wishes,
 
Tim Crowley
PA Ballot Access Coalition
 
 

Voters' Choice Act

The Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition has drafted a Voters' Choice Act (VCA) to address Pennsylvania's electoral problems. PBAC is currently seeking sponsors and supporters for this legislation. This legislation has not yet been introduced in the legislature, and you can help change that. PBAC has hand-delivered the VCA to all legislators' Harrisburg offices and has contacted all legislators' offices by phone. PBAC is asking all legislators to return a questionnaire on their level of support for the VCA.

Download

White paper including the Act -- this is the document in legislators' hands.

Brochure on the Voters' Choice Act -- suitable for handing out to neighbors, etc.

What is the VCA?

The Voters' Choice Act (VCA) will give greater freedom of choice to the Pennsylvania voter by making it much less difficult for independent and third party candidates to get on the November ballot. The VCA changes the way a third party is legally defined. Instead of requiring a third party's existence to be determined by how well a Democrat or Republican did in the last election, under the Voters' Choice Act a third party would be legally recognized once it has at least 0.05% of the total number of voters in Pennsylvania registered in their party. This is the way our neighboring state of Delaware legally defines a third party. Following this model, candidates from third parties, like the two old parties, would have no signature requirement to have their names placed on the November ballot.

As for independent candidates, instead of having to obtain over 67,000 signatures on their nominating petitions in order to appear on the statewide ballot in 2006, independents would only be required to collect the same 2,000 signatures that the candidates from the two old parties need to get into their primary.

----- Original Message -----
To:
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2015 4:55 PM
Subject: RE: [KenK_Honchos] Near-Term Opportunity

                Very, very accurate and true.  And I'm on top of it (I think), as you know.  I plan to be there to speak at the bill's introduction rally.  I've already been in touch with Wolf's transition team about getting it on his agenda—successfully, I must add.  And more.

                 You're on the PBAC.  Let's both keep an eye out for opportunities.

 

                - Ken

 

 

Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2015 4:28 PM
To: K18
Subject: [KenK_Honchos] Near-Term Opportunity

 

No matter how we do it, collecting nominating petition sigs is going to be a very significant drain on the K18 campaign.

 

Senator Folmer is going to re-introduce the Voters' Choice Act soon in the PA Senate.  Since he will also be the chair of the State Gov't Committee, we are guaranteed that the VCA will get a public hearing and probably will get voted out of committee for a Senate vote.  Preliminary indications are that Governor Wolf might even sign the thing if it makes it to his desk.  It might be that the planets are properly aligned so that chances of getting the VCA passed this legislative session are better than they have ever been.

 

Passing the VCA would be a huge benefit to K18, as well as being a continuing game-changing benefit into the future.  I think working on getting the VCA passed this session is working on K18, as long as we think there is a reasonable probability that it can become law.

 

--
Dear Senator xxx,
 
I urge you to support the Voters' Choice Act. This bill levels the playing field between all PA political parties, not just the big, well-established ones.
 
Right now parties such as the Libertarians, Greens, Constitution Party and others must gather over 15,000 valid signatures while the Democrats and Republicans only  need 2,000.
 
The PA Constitution says that 'elections should be free and equal." This does not seem free and equal to me.
 
Sincerely,
 
xxx xxxxxx

 

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