OntheWilderSide

Offers Ideas on Protecting Election Rights, Withdrawing Petition Signatures, and How to Make Elections Fairer and Better for Voters

John Anthony La Pietra, nominated by the Green Party of Michigan (GPMI) as the party’s 2010 candidate for Secretary of State, has posted the first three “position discussion papers” on his campaign Website.  The home page is at:

http://members.triton.net/jalp/jalp4FBE.html

John wants these papers to do more than just present some ideas he has on the topics — he wants to stimulate discussion and bring out more ideas from others.  “Our state’s government needs all the good ideas it can get,” he says.

* In one of the papers, John discusses some different ways we have — or could have — of protecting our vital election rights:  auditing elections, recounts, election challengers and poll-watchers, and so on.

* Another paper addresses the controversies surrounding the 2006 Michigan Civil Rights Initiative petition and this year’s petition to put The Tea Party on the ballot — by looking at how some other states have tried to handle the thorny question of when and how voters should be able to withdraw their names from political petitions.

* And, going back to his campaign’s overarching theme, John has written up some ideas on how to make elections work fairer and better for all voters — ways to encourage voters to participate, to let votes express more of what voters want, and to boost voter confidence in the fairness and impartiality of election administration.

The campaign currently has limited Webspace available, but John promises to do what he can to share responses he gets to these discussion papers — and to some others he plans to write as the campaign continues.  The first three also contain some invitations — including one to Michigan voters to survey the voting equipment and conditions at precincts statewide, and another to his fellow SOS candidates to join him in making their race an example for a statistical audit or a full recount.

To contact John’s campaign for Secretary of State, please feel free to e-mail

jalp4FBE@triton.net

or call 269-781-9478.

For more information on GPMI and its other candidates, contact

Green Party of Michigan
548 South Main Street
Ann Arbor, MI  48104
http://www.MIGreens.org
734-663-3555

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Filed under: 3rd party, activism, Ballot issues, election, Election 2010, elections, grassroots democracy, green, Green Party, News, platform, politics, Press Release, third party, US Politics Tagged: | Ann Arbor Michigan, ballot, Civil and political rights, Government, green, Green Party of Michigan, Michigan, politics, Secretary of State, voting