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   Vol.64/No.49            December 25, 2000 
 
 
SWP vote totals in November elections
 
BY GREG MCCARTAN  
Socialist Workers presidential candidate James Harris and running-mate Margaret Trowe received 10,644 votes in the November election.

Harris, 52, and Trowe, 52, were on the ballot in 13 states and the District of Columbia, two more states than in 1996. Reactionary legislation aimed at limiting ballot access prevented the SWP from obtaining ballot status in many states. Requirements that include submitting tens of thousands of signatures are not uncommon across the country. The SWP petitioning effort in New York, for example, collected 31,000 signatures, double the number required.

This was the SWP's 14th presidential ticket. Farrell Dobbs and Grace Carlson were the first SWP candidates for president and vice president in 1948, and the party has run a ticket in every presidential election year since.

This year the SWP fielded 11 candidates for U.S. Senate and 21 for the U.S. House of Representatives. Rebecca Ellis, 52, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Senate in Minnesota, received 13,781 votes. Ellis participated in a panel of five candidates for U.S. Senate in Minnesota, and was featured in a "Minnesota Citizens' Forum Candidate Quiz" that ran in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for seven consecutive Sundays. Each week the candidates answered questions such as, "What would you do to improve the rural economy and the prosperity of the family farm?"

In New York, senatorial candidate Jacob Perasso, 24, a leader of the Young Socialists, received 4,103 votes. And in New Jersey, the party's Senate candidate, Nancy Rosenstock, 51, a garment worker, received 3,219. The other SWP candidates for senate were write-in candidates.

Among the SWP candidates for U.S. House of Representatives, Paul Pederson, 24, who stood for the 12th Congressional District (CD) in Brooklyn, New York, received 1,271 votes; Maurice Williams, 43, running in the 10th CD in Newark, New Jersey, received 448 votes; Kari Sachs, 35, in the 13th CD in the Newark area, received 156 votes; Edwin Fruit, 53, a packinghouse worker running in the 4th CD in Des Moines, Iowa, received 612 votes; Sam Manuel, 50, running for District of Columbia representative to the House, a nonvoting position, received 1,419 votes.

Trowe and Harris traveled to 70 cities and towns in 35 states during the election year, and took their socialist campaign to Australia, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The campaign was able to break into the media in a number of cities, especially in newspapers. Much of this coverage, as well as articles and other information on the campaign was featured in the Militant. These items can now be found under "Search back issues," listed under the year 2000 at: themilitant.com.  
 
 
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