The rapid collection of all pledges to the SWP Campaign Appeal is urgently needed to support the Nebraska ballot effort and the one that will follow shortly afterward in Wisconsin, and to step up the visibility and reach of the socialist campaign across the U.S.
A total of $52,300 has been pledged to the fund, with $29,305 collected to date.
A ballot effort like the one started in Nebraska takes considerable funds to complete. The state of Nebraska requires 2,500 signatures to qualify a presidential ticket for its state ballot. Campaigners there plan to collect double that number while passing out thousands of campaign flyers in both English and Spanish. The volunteers will concentrate their efforts initially in the Omaha and Lincoln areas. Campaign supporters in that state are organizing to house and feed campaigners and to pay for transportation around the area and the production of substantial quantities of campaign literature. Everyone’s help, however, is badly needed to make this a success.
The deadline for the fund appeal is August 1—only four days after this issue goes to press.
There are still many potential campaign backers who have not been approached who will be interested in the response SWP campaigners are receiving on the streets (see articles on this page on Washington, D.C., and Minnesota ballot drives). We can organize at the same time to collect all the outstanding pledges from supporters who have promised donations but have not paid yet.
In the Midwest, the SWP is targeting ballot status in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, where the resistance of meat packers to the bosses offensive has been centered for the past six years. The socialist campaign presents workers and farmers with a clear alternative to the twin parties of capitalism, the Democrats and Republicans, who back up the employers drive to cut wages and worsen working conditions.
The SWP campaign filed nearly 3,000 signatures in Iowa on July 27 to place the presidential ticket on that state’s ballot and for Edwin Fruit, the SWP candidate for U.S. Senate there. SWP vice-presidential candidate Arrin Hawkins joined Fruit at a Des Moines press conference to announce the filing of the petitions. Hours later the state certified the SWP slate with ballot status.
Funds are also needed to organize efforts to beat back challenges to the socialists’ ballot campaigns by state authorities that use undemocratic state laws and arbitrary rulings to keep any working-class alternative off the ballot.
In May and June, supporters of the socialist campaign collected more than 2,100 signatures in Mississippi for the party’s presidential ticket to be placed on that state’s ballot. The total collected was more than double the state requirement of 1,000 signatures, and campaign organizers quickly sent the signatures to the various county clerks around the state for verification.
Nearly half the signatures were collected in Jackson, which is located in Hinds County. County election officials are now claiming that less than 30 percent of those who signed the petitions are registered voters.
“We doubt that this count is accurate,” said Róger Calero. “A team of campaign organizers is in Jackson now reviewing the count by the county clerk’s office to see if workers, farmers, and students who signed for the SWP presidential candidates are having their signatures tossed out in a discriminatory fashion. They will also meet with those interested in the campaign, collecting additional signatures, and preparing the way for a tour there by Arrin Hawkins that will begin on July 31.” (See below.)
To send a contribution write your check to the Socialist Workers National Campaign Committee and send it to P.O. Box 42651, Philadelphia, PA 19101. You can contact the national center of the socialist campaign at miamiswp@bellsouth.net
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As We Go to Press…. …SWP campaigner Arlene Rubinstein reported by phone a victory in the effort to put the socialist campaign on the state ballot in Mississippi. Here’s what she told the Militant: “A team of three—myself, Susan LaMont, and Janine Dukes—arrived at the Hinds County clerk’s office in Jackson, Mississippi, this morning. The socialist campaign had submitted 843 signatures to that office and they validated only 231. That was far short of the validation rate we had seen throughout Mississippi and across the country. We were concerned there might be a question of disenfranchisement of workers, farmers, students, youth, and others—many of whom are Black—who signed the SWP petitions here, where we got an excellent response from working people. We requested from the clerk’s office that we be able to review the petitions. They agreed. “After a quick review this morning, we found 50 signatures that were valid—what was in the petition was identical with the information in the county’s computerized voter registration rolls. These signatures had not been counted. Overall, we found 204 signatures that had been invalidated for no good reason, like one letter in a name misspelled. And that was not after an exhaustive review; it took us only two hours to uncover these facts. “We immediately requested to meet with Barbara Dunn, the circuit clerk of Hinds County. She agreed and we laid out what we had found. She made a phone call to consult with someone, and rapidly agreed that we were right. She said she had no intention of disenfranchising voters. “Dunn issued a letter certifying 435 signatures from Hinds County. That put us over the top in Mississippi. We now have 1,026 valid signatures certified by the clerks of various counties, with a few counties still counting. The legal requirement is 1,000. Our next step is to submit all these signatures to the secretary of state for ballot certification. Working people scored a small victory here today.” |