🚀 go-pugleaf

Bringing "Honesty and Integrity" Back to the Whitehouse!

Was forging signatures to get on the ballot in the Bronx and example of the
"Honesty and Integrity" that President-elect Bush (as the media has been
calling him for the last year) will bring to the Whitehouse? See the 5th
paragraph from the end.

A reminder for the Bush Campaign: This is the United States of America.
Keeping the competition off the ballot DOES NOT happen in this country. This
IS NOT a third world country! This IS NOT Communist China! We hold FREE
ELECTIONS in this country!

From the NY Times 2/5/00:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/020500wh-gop-mccain-ny.html

          Rejecting Rules, U.S. Judge Opens New York Ballot

          By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

          With the state's Republican leadership in retreat, a federal
          judge made Senator John McCain's victory over the New
          York primary system official yesterday, placing him on the ballot
          and even adding another candidate, Alan Keyes. The judge's order
          means that Republicans in New York will for the first time in
          memory choose from the same presidential contenders running in
          other states. 

          The judge, Edward R. Korman of United States District Court in
          Brooklyn, also sought to hinder the state party from disqualifying
          candidates like Mr. McCain in future primaries, ruling that two
          requirements for circulating nominating petitions were
          unconstitutional. 

          The moves by the judge came in a court settlement reached a
          day after Gov. George W. Bush of Texas and his chief New York
          supporter, Gov. George E. Pataki, dropped their attempt to use
          the state's tortuous election rules to bar Mr. McCain from the
          March 7 primary. 

          The two governors hoped to limit the political damage from the
          ballot fight, which Mr. McCain, who scored a startling win in the
New
          Hampshire primary, had turned into a potent symbol of his tilting
          against the political establishment. 

          In the court settlement, the Republican State Committee
          acknowledged that the primary rules "impose an undue burden on
          access" to the ballot, depriving people of the right to vote under
          the First Amendment. 

          Until yesterday, voters in some parts of the state would have been
          able to select only between Mr. Bush and Steve Forbes, the
          publisher, but the ballot across the state is now to include the
four
          contenders still in the race. 

          Mr. McCain had tried to qualify across New York, but petition
          challenges by the party had left him on the ballot in only 19 of the
          state's 31 Congressional districts. 

          Mr. Pataki promised on Thursday that Mr. McCain would be in the
          primary across the state, but Mr. McCain and his lawyers said they
          wanted more than just a ballot spot, demanding that some of the
          rules be repealed. 

          In talks yesterday to settle a lawsuit brought by Mr. McCain
          against the primary system, party lawyers then pledged not to
          appeal the judge's decision to overturn the two petition
          requirements. 

          "After a long struggle, I am now confident that I can win the state
          of New York," Mr. McCain said in a statement. "I am glad there will
          not be a repetition of the kind of machine-style political control
of
          the process of selecting the nominee of our party." 

          Whether the 2004 primary will be starkly different is unclear,
          because the governor and the Legislature renew the rules every
          four years. But the publicity surrounding the ballot fight and the
          judge's ruling and repeated criticism suggest that the Republicans
          may be ready to overhaul a system that has long given the party
          favorite many advantages. 

          The Democratic system in New York has less onerous
          requirements, though it is still tougher than that of many other
          states. Both major contenders this year, Vice President Al Gore
          and former Senator Bill Bradley, qualified statewide. 

          In most of the country, widely recognized candidates like Mr.
          McCain have to spend little or no resources qualifying for
primaries.

          In New York, Mr. McCain spent nearly $200,000 to get on the
          ballot in 19 districts; Mr. Forbes spent nearly $700,000, his
lawyers
          said this week, to qualify statewide. 

          The New York system is laden with requirements, but the two that
          Judge Korman overturned became touchstones in the debate over
          whether the rules were unfair. Candidates qualify for the primary
          district by district, and one of the requirements mandated that
          people who circulate petitions in a district either be Republicans
          residing in the district or notaries public. 

          Candidates as a result were prohibited from sending groups of
          volunteers across the state to collect signatures, and had to
          establish organizations in all 31 districts. That was not a problem
for
          a party favorite like Mr. Bush, who was assisted in the petition
          gathering by hundreds of party regulars on the local level. But it
          proved a handicap for Mr. McCain, whose base was in Staten
          Island, home of Guy V. Molinari, the borough president and his
          state campaign chairman. 

          At hearings in the lawsuit, Judge Korman called this rule bizarre.
In
          his decision released yesterday, he wrote that its purpose was "to
          disadvantage a candidate for president who does not enjoy the
          support of the Republican State Committee." He noted that it
          drastically reduced the pool of Republicans who could circulate
          petitions from the 3.1 million in the state to the fraction living
in a
          Congressional district. 

          Judge Korman also threw out another rule that he seemed to find
          just as maddening. It required people who sign petitions to list
their
          town, rather than their village. Citing this technicality, local
          Republicans on Long Island were able to disqualify thousands of
          signatures on Forbes and McCain petitions. Long Island has a few
          large towns made up of many villages, and most people use their
          villages as their addresses. 

          While Mr. Bush had the state party's help, he was actually thrown
          off the ballot in a district in the South Bronx because petition
          gatherers forged signatures. In his decision, Judge Korman put Mr.
          Bush back on the ballot in the district, apparently to ensure that
all
          four candidates had the same chance. 

          Aides to Mr. Pataki appeared relieved yesterday that the ballot
          battle was over and that they had taken away an issue from Mr.
          McCain. "It gave the McCain campaign the ability to talk about
          something that is not of great significance to the average voter,"
          said Zenia Mucha, a spokeswoman for Mr. Pataki. 

          Asked about future primaries, Ms. Mucha said the party would
          study the judge's decision and "see how we can address this to
          make it a much fairer and better system." 

          John R. Cuti, a lawyer for Mr. McCain, said the party would have
          no choice. He said the legal and public relations fallout from the
          fight would reverberate into 2004. 

          "Senator McCain was not going to accept a deal that merely put
          him on the ballot," said Mr. Cuti, a partner at the firm of Emery,
          Cuti, Brinckerhoff & Abady. "He wanted real reform and we got it."