Albany Democrat-Herald
February 28, 2006

Our legislators do not like independent candidates. So last session they made it more complicated for independents to get on the ballot. In the process they abridged the rights of Oregon voters.

During the 2004 presidential campaign season, Oregon Democrats complained when Republicans made an effort to get Ralph Nader on the ballot by means of petition. The Republicans hoped that Nader would siphon votes from John Kerry, thereby giving Bush a chance to carry the state. But they fell short on both counts.

Republicans worried about similar maneuvers by the Democrats in different contexts. So they cooperated and passed a law saying a voter can nominate only one person per office. The goal is to keep supporters of one candidate from nominating somebody else in order to dilute the opposition. From a partisan standpoint this makes sense, but the upshot is that:

* People who vote in a party primary, either Democrat or Republican, may not sign an independent nominating petition.
* People who sign an independent nominating petition may not vote in a party primary afterward. (Voters in the nonaffiliated primary, for nonpartisan offices and ballot measures only, may sign independent nominating petitions.)

There’s no fine or other penalty, but if voters take part in two nominating processes, either their signatures on nominating petitions or their ballots in party primaries will not be counted.

It’s not clear how that can work if the nominating petitions are handed in before the primary. Election clerks then would have to check incoming ballots against any independent nominating petitions on file and disqualify affected voters before their ballots are separated from their signature envelopes.

This hardly seems feasible without a whole lot of additional record keeping. Also, it’s not really feasible to check thousands of names on nominating petitions for statewide office against all the votes cast county by county in the Democrat and Republican primaries — unless there’s some technical way to do so with the newly established statewide voter registry.

In any case, it’s hard to see how this new restriction, enacted by HB 2614 in the 2005 legislative session, can be in the public interest.

Who cares if a voter nominates more than one person for office? The motive may be underhanded — as it was with the Republicans pushing Nader to harm Kerry — but the only downside for voters is that there are more choices on the ballot. And if we’re serious about running a democracy, then having more choices cannot be considered a bad thing.

In their partisan zeal to keep outsiders away, our legislators unwittingly provided another argument for doing away with party primaries altogether. With the pending initiative for open primaries, voters may get the chance to accomplish that this year. (hh)