Liberty Ticker: Democratic-Republican Ballot Access Regime Rigged to Reproduce the Status Quo

The Liberty Ticker is a new blog, begun just last month to keep tabs on "liberty candidates" for office, including "libertarian, constitutional, third party and independent" political hopefuls. One might quibble, however, with the Ticker's underlying presupposition that individual representatives of the Republican and Democratic Parties can legitimately be said to stand for liberty as they literally stand for the tyranny that is Democratic-Republican Party government. Nonetheless, the Ticker seems to recognize this as well, judging from a recent post calling for reform of the ruling Democratic-Republican ballot access regime, entitled: "Legalized Monopoly: Ballot Access Laws in America." Some excerpts:

Incumbent elected officials, in the guise of Republicans and Democrats, have managed to secure a monopoly on our political process. Their access to less stringent ballot restrictions, a friendly bureaucracy, and favorable court decisions has created a situation where independent or minor party candidates have an institutional disadvantage in politics which subverts the concept of democracy in our society . . .

Beyond the mechanics of the bias in our political system toward the two major parties, there is a substantial bias in implementation of election law . . .

There is a substantial bias in favor of the major political parties in the American court system . . .

Our current conception of ballot access law is antithetical to the concept of democracy. True self-rule is not found in the victors curtailing the options of the electorate. Instead, we find only the silencing of minority parties and independent candidates, who are largely excluded through such coercive measures.

Read the whole thing for supporting arguments and individual examples from a number of states.