By Jordon M. Greene | Free the Vote North Carolina News
Tomorrow the NC House Election Law & Campaign Finance Committee will review and vote on the proposed committee substitute for House Bill 32, the Electoral Freedom Act of 2011. So far it seems that the main change is that the signature requirement will change from set numbers as originally proposed to a 1% requirement for all offices and for a new political party to gain ballot eligibility.
While a 1% requirement is not ideal it will effectively cut in half the number of signatures currently required by state law for new political parties and unaffiliated statewide candidates and work to bridge some of the inequalities between the number of signatures required of unaffiliated congressional, state house and senate candidate as compared to statewide candidates.
We are confident that the bill will receive a favorable vote from the Elections Committee and then move on to the House floor sometime later this week or early next week. We hope that you will come out to the committee meeting and show your support for freedom of speech at the ballot box with us. The meeting will take place 15 minutes after session (sometime between 3:00pm and 4:00pm probably) in room 643 of the Legislative Office Building. We look forward to seeing you there.
If you cannot make it to the meeting in Raleigh you can listen to the Committee Meeting online at VoterRadio.com provided by the NC Center for Voter Education.
