Independent Canvass

To get on the Massachusetts ballot this fall as an independent candidate for Senator, H. Stuart Hughes will have to collect 70,000 supporting signatures between the middle of May and the end of July, a period of only ninety days. Such a large number of required signatures, arbitrarily set at three per cent of the most recent gubernatorial vote, presents an extremely difficult obstacle for a potential independent. The difficulty is especially large because the time limit is so short. Since the early '30's, only a very few independent candidates for a major office have been able to muster this kind of petition support.

Minority party movements in the state, suffering from the same severe ballot requirements as independent candidates, have fared no better. A newly formed party must continue the expensive and time-consuming process of soliciting signatures for three years before it will be placed permanently on the ballot. Since the Thirties only one new party has succeeded. In 1948 when the Progressive Party ran, the requirement for getting on the ballot was only 50,900 signatures. The gubernatorial vote determining this number had been in an off-election year.

But the difficulty in getting on the ballot is not due only to number of signatures. Petitions for independent candidates are issued simultaneously with those for the party primaries. And all must be completed by the same deadline. This presents obvious problems for the independent candidate who does not have party machinery to rely on and who most likely has to fight against the existing machinery.

It is the time problem that is most disconcerting for independents. Some kind of numerical requirement must, after all, be set, and three per cent of the gubernatorial vote, while perhaps a little stiff, is justifiable. But there is no reason why the nominating petitions couldn't be released earlier. No particular date for this has been legally specified; and bureaucratic inefficiency can not be a valid excuse for a delay which unjustly penalizes independent candidates. The alternative is extending the petition deadline to a time closer to the actual elections.

With two giant parties in the U.S. controlled by machinery and powerfully financed, politics in this country has become pretty much a closed game; indeed, almost a family one. Independent politicians and minority parties have inspired much of American reform, often without ever enjoying election victory. Party apparatus must not squeeze opportunity for independent protest from the American scene.