I want you to feel guilty, legitimately. You have hundreds of people involved trying to improve the political process for you and all other New Yorkers, and you even hesitate to spend a few moments to let us know that you are with us in heart and spirit. We need to know that and the way that you can pay us back for the hundreds, thousands and hundreds of thousands of hours we are devoting to making life better for all of us is to REGISTER TO VOTE, AND DESIGNATE (or change the designation of your political party to) THE GREEN PARTY. If you want to have a choice in the future - not between Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee - become a member of the NYS Green Party (i) by registering to vote (and designating the Green Party as your party of choice in the "other" option at the bottom of the form; or, if you are already registered to vote but not as a Green Party member, (ii) by changing your party designation to NYS Green Party at the bottom of the form. The appropriate form is available by link at the NYS Green Party website, NYS Green Party Discussion and Links to Voter Registration Forms.
You probably are unaware that your friendly legislators and Governor in New York have enacted and allowed to remain unchanged, in spite of several lawsuits pointing out the problems, the requirement for anyone seeking to become a candidate for statewide or local office in New York State, to obtain (if a candidate for statewide office) signatures of several tens of thousands of registered voters throughout at least half of the 72 counties in New York State, on sheets of paper made available on May 15th or so in an election year, to be witnessed by the person carrying the sheet, and completed within a few weeks after May 15th, and filed in a NYS Bureau of Elections Office within the deadline. This task is labor intensive, enabling someone with a lot of money to be able to put together the team required to solicit that large number of signatures in a very short period of time, but disabling you, me and 99% of all other citizens of New York State from becoming a candidate for statewide office in New York, because of the lack of the huge amount of money needed to meet this NYS Elections Law requirement imposed on you by your friendly Democratic and Republican legislators and Governors over the past decades. They have taken away your right to contest their representation of you.
What has this got to do with the Green Party?
Everything. The Green Party and any other minority party in New York State, as long as such party is able to obtain a minimum of 50,000 votes for its (statewide) Gubernatorial candidate, you and I can get on the ballot in New York State to challenge incumbents and the candidates of the ruling Democratic and Republican parties with the requirement of collecting only 10 signatures or so (in the Green Party, for example), something that can be done in an hour or two during a single day, as Sander Hicks and I both did during January, 2006, while attending a Green-Party State Committee meeting in Binghamton, New York.
We and YOU need your vote for the Green Party Gubernatorial candidate (apparently to be Malachy McCourt) and the other Green-Party candidates including myself. The Green Party needs your vote to ensure that it does not lose its status as a registered political party in New York State. If it loses that status, New Yorkers lose their ability to challenge the candidacies of the political bosses, Democratic and Republican, in New York State.
If you want your vote to make a difference, VOTE GREEN!
PLEASE, WE NEED YOU TO DO THIS FOR US AND YOURSELF. If you have any questions about the procedure, please give me (Carl E. Person, NYS Attorney General candidate) a telephone call or send me an email. I am anxious to make things happen, including your membership in the NYS Green Party. Please go to the NYS Green Party website to read other, very compelling reasons why you should act as I urge you to do.
The Nominating Petition Rules
The New York State Board of Elections states that under New York Elections Law
the number of signatures required "For any office to be filled by all the
voters of the entire state - 15,000 (with at least 100 or 5% of enrolled voters
from each of one-half of the [31] congressional districts)" and "GENERAL
ELECTION - First day to sign independent nomination [sic] petitions for the
General Election is July 11, 2006. Dates for filing independent nominating petitions
for the November [2006] General Election are August 15-22, 2006."
Note: there are 31 "Congressional Districts" in New York State, so that the independent candidate is required by the New York Elections Law to get at least 100 valid signatures from enrolled voters in at least 16 of the 31 Congressional districts in New York State within the required 35-42 day period of time. In other words, the independent candidate has to obtain a minimum of about 400 valid signatures per day during a 40-day period, or 800 per day, just to be sure that there are enough valid signatures in case of any challenge.
Your Green-Party vote will enable you or others you know to become a candidate
to challenge an incumbent without having to do this impossible task.